From the Joy, Comes the Pain, From the Pain, Comes the Joy
by Son of Caliban
Summary: Himiko Toga finally gets what she wants, regardless of the cost. Izuku Midoriya is left to pick up the pieces of his life and move on. But Toga leaves him one last surprise to ensure he never forgets her. Izuku always wanted to be a hero. But can he also be a father? (Edited by Unsettling-A.I.R)
1. In Which Midoriya Receives Bad News

Izuku Midoriya awoke slowly, blinking blearily as he tried to clear away the haze of unconsciousness. He brought a hand up to his face, the back of his wrist colliding with his forehead before he brought it down and wiped the sleep from his eyes. A ragged moan escaped his lips as the insides of his skull throbbed in protest of this action, and the sudden light filtering into his vision. He slammed his eyes closed again, covering them with his arm. His whole body ached, but his head was the worst of it, with his brain feeling like it was pressing against the walls of his skull, trapped, confined in a space too small for it.

A pathetic groan escaped his lips. They were dry as desert sands, chapped it seemed, and his throat felt like it was lined with sandpaper. He swallowed some spittle that was more air than saliva, and then groaned again. At least the surface he was lying on was nice and soft, blankets covering him to the waist.

"Don't you wanna have fun?"

Unbidden, the words came to him, a phantom sensation of pain in his lower stomach accompanying them. His eyes opened under his arm, and he remembered more; a savage grin, pointed canines, blood red eyes shining with sadistic glee... his chest throbbed suddenly, in sync with the back of his head. What had happened? Had he and Kacchan gone too far with another training bout? Was Kacchan okay?

He tried to straighten out his thoughts and remember. He had been... a movie. He remembered a movie, or at least the theatre. Iida had been there, with Uraraka and... Shoji, right, Shoji had wanted to see the film. Something horror-related, he thought, and with a blush he remembered Uraraka clinging to his side, her chest pressed against his arm.

Then... the movie had ended. Iida has thought it silly, he and Shoji were debating some point of contention involving the plot. Uraraka was talking about getting Ashido or Hakagure to sleep in her room that night, to ward off nightmares. He had been... chuckling. The movie hadn't felt that scary, something about a clown being scary didn't work for him.

Then... a phone call. He sent the others ahead, took the call. His mother. She had been... worried? Yes, worried, somebody had been creeping around the house, though she hadn't seen who. Could he please come over and take a look around? She didn't want to bother the police but since he was in the area...

Then... a back alley, a shortcut home. He arrived, the front door opened, his mother greeted him. A hug... and something... a prick, in his back, then monstrous pain when she smashed him on the head with something heavy, a crowbar? He couldn't remember. Why... why would his mother do that?

After that... nothing.

Where was he now?

An analytical mind needed something to analyze, so he let his eyes slide open again, moving his arm. The light still hurt, but he blinked and let himself adjust. White lights in a white ceiling. White walls. A window. A chair. In the chair...

"A-Aizawa... Aizawa-Sensei?"

The rasping words slipped from his lips before he could stop himself, rousing the dozing man from his slumber and making him grunt in surprise. Aizawa looked like a disaster, moreso than usual, hair ragged and messy, eyes so bloodshot they were almost pink and clothes torn and wrinkled. His scarf was wrapped around his neck haphazardly, loose and ready to be used, but his reflexes seemed off. His eyes darted all around the room as well, searching, before falling into Izuku.

"Midoriya..." he said, voice low. "You're awake. Good. How do... how do you feel?"

"Thirsty." Izuku admitted. "Is... anyone else hurt?"

Aizawa groaned, rising to his feet. He staggered forward, body shuddering with something Izuku knew had to be pain, before he grabbed the empty water cup from the bedside table and moved toward another door, near the first. The bathroom, Izuku deduced.

"Nobody else..." Aizawa hesitated. "The rest of your class is fine. Worried sick... but fine."

Izuku breathed a sigh of relief. So it was only him. Good. But... what had been that hesitation? Why had Aizawa refused to answer for so long? Izuku pondered it for a moment, before something else came crashing down onto him and he remembered.

"My mom!" he said, louder than he meant to. "Is she okay? There was... somebody was in... around the house and..."

Aizawa emerged from the bathroom, the tap still running behind him and a half-full glass of water in one hand. He looked guilty, as if Izuku had accused him of something, as if he... he knew...

As if he knew the answer, and was afraid to tell.

"No." Izuku said, shaking his head.

"I..." Aizawa hesitated again. "I shouldn't be the... the one to..."

A choked sob escaped Izuku's throat, then another, tears leaking down his face. He fought the oncoming breakdown with all his might, however because he couldn't bring himself to believe it.

"Your mother was..." Aizawa sounded like he was forcing the words. "She was found... in the basement of the house."

"No..." Izuku pleaded with him.

"She's dead." said Shota Aizawa, Hero name Eraserhead, homeroom teacher of class 1-A just keep repeating facts Izuku don't accept what he just said just keep adding to the sentence delay your response.

"I'm sorry."

The last of his resistance snapped, and Izuku began sobbing in full, his own pain forgotten as his heart ached like a hundred spears had been driven through it at once. He screamed and cried, wordless animal noises of grief not meant for the human body to make, the last normalcy in his life stripped away as suddenly as he could blink.

He didn't feel Aizawa put his arms around him in a desperate attempt to try and alleviate the pain. He didn't hear the doctors and nurses burst in talking about anesthetics. He didn't see Aizawa's own tears as his teacher decided he had failed. He didn't know that the pain had only just begun.

All he knew was that his mother was gone. Her smiles and laughs and tears and hugs were gone. No longer could she cook him a bowl of Katsudon when he came home bruised from 'rough play' or call him in the evening to ask about his day. No longer could he seek her guidance when the world became too difficult to understand. No longer could they stand together against the world.

Izuku passed out into unconsciousness ten minutes after waking. But he dreamed while asleep, dreams of his mother begging him for help, reaching out, his body being too weak, his legs being too slow, his hands unable to grab her own.

He awoke screaming and thrashing, One for All filling his body. He took of running, propelling himself out of the hospital bed and through the door into the hallway, bouncing off a wall and catching himself with one hand on the floor. His eyes scanned the area ahead; a nurse was staring at him, stunned. A doctor behind her was equally surprised. He tensed up to run, to jump, to find his mother and save her.

One for All disappeared, the strength holding him up fading as Aizawa looked upon him. He collapsed into a heap on the floor, two new nurses moving to help him back to his bed. He begged for them to let go, to let him save her. They had nothing but apologies for him as they set him back down, Aizawa finally releasing his Quirk after several long moments of stillness.

"Don't do that again." he warned. ""My eyes are killing me as is."

"I need to-" Izuku's protests were cut off as Aizawa pressed a hand to his chest, pressing him back down into the mattress. He hadn't even felt himself trying to rise.

"You need to rest." Aizawa said. "There's nothing you can do right now."

"But-" Once again he was cut off when Aizawa shook his head.

"Midoriya." he snapped. "I'm sorry for your loss. I'm sorry I wasn't there to protect her. I'm sorry you have to go through all of this. But running off in a panic won't help anybody with anything. You need to recover. You were badly injured when I found you, and the doctors say you're still healing. After that, we need to go to the police and you need to give a full testimony so we can figure out what happened. THEN you can be All Might and go punch something into submission, got it?"

Izuku fell silent. Aizawa watched him for a moment, eyes constantly blinking, before reaching out with a gentle hand and rubbing the boy's shoulder.

"Your classmates want to see you." he said, voice much softer now. "All of them. Even Bakugo. Would you be okay with that?"

Izuku thought about it.

"I'd... I'd like that." he admitted.

"I thought so." Aizawa nodded. "I'll call down and let them know it's okay."


	2. In Which Things Get Worse

In the end, the organization of the visiting students was handled by none other than Iida Tenya, who split the class into groups of four so that they wouldn't overwhelm the still-bedridden Midoriya. Iida's ailing classmate seemed to appreciate the gesture, greeting each group with a smile that was real, if a little watery and weak. Most pretended not to notice, and the rest simply didn't actually notice at all. The groups themselves were mostly self-created; he had paired up with Uraraka and joined Shoji and Tsuyu, while Jiro, Koda, Tokoyami and Sato all came together. Ashido, Kaminari, Sero and Kirishima all grouping up was to be expected, though Bakugou had strangely demanded to go alone, even accepting that he would be last to visit. The others fell into line soon enough, and the visits could begin.

Iida and his group were first in. Izuku felt terrible, but not as bad as he had before. The stages of grief had stalled in their momentum somewhat, and he was happy to see his friends all intact and alive. They, on the other hand, noticed that something seemed just a little off. Uraraka throwing herself on him didn't elicit so much as a whimper of embarrassment or protest, just a solemn return of the gesture. Similarly, Iida's robotic demeanour didn't faze him in the slightest, though Shoji's expression of happiness that he was recovering was taken with genuine gratitude.

The Ashido and Crew visit was much more quiet and well-balanced than the sporadic disaster of a group usually managed; Ashido herself refrained from any exuberant displays of excitement, Kaminari kept the quips to a minimum and even Kirishima only spoke of manliness once in reference to Izuku's speedy recovery. Sero's gift of one of Izuku's notebooks was taken with a real smile, which comforted the group.

The others visited in their own unique little ways. Aoyama offered cosmetic products in the future to assist Midoriya in looking his best despite the fading bruises and fresh scars on his face. Tokoyami's poetic little soliloquy about mortality and fate was as morbid as ever, but Izuku seemed to appreciate it. It was refreshing for somebody to actually acknowledge his mother's fate, rather than dance around the topic. Sato had brought cookies, several enormous Tupperware containers of them, which he offered with a smile and the promise of more in the future, as many as Midoriya needed.

But it was Bakugou's visit which prompted the most from Izuku out of all of them.

The blonde walked in, hands in his pockets and omni-present scowl on his face, sat down across from Izuku and glared at him for a moment. Then he glared at the ceiling, then the floor. Finally, he looked back at Izuku, and the glare softened into something that looked uncomfortably like remorse, an expression which suited Bakugou as well as a tuxedo suited a semi-truck. Then it snapped back to anger.

"They told you who did it?" he asked.

"No." Izuku replied, shaking his head.

"I'm gonna find out." Bakugou declared, voice a low, threatening rumble. "And I'm gonna fucking destroy them."

Izuku said nothing, turning and staring at his window for a long moment. Then, without turning, without changing his tone from that flat, even voice he'd been using all day, he spoke.

"I'd like that." he said. "But you'll have to get in line."

"I'll give you first shot." agreed Bakugou. "But after that it's free game."

Bakugou grinned, dark and dangerous. Izuku looked back and met his grin with a tiny, frail smile. Bakugou reached out with a single hand, which Izuku took. They shook on it, and Bakugou walked out with a spring in his step. A few minutes later, Aizawa entered the room. He looked a little better; he'd probably taken a nap while the visits were going on, giving him nearly two hours of sleep.

"Do you feel ready to talk to the police?" he asked.

"Yes." Izuku nodded.

An hour later, the familiar face of Detective Tsukauchi was looking at Izuku, who had sat himself up in bed despite his spines protests that it most certainly did NOT want to do that. He had that generally apologetic look on his face that most people had these days, something Izuku was getting a little tired of. He got it. People felt bad for him. He was an orphan. Probably. Did his father count? Was his father coming home for the first time in ages? Would his father even come home?

"Midoriya?"

Tsukauchi's voice was soft. Izuku looked up, blinking and realizing that he had been muttering to himself again, the same way he always did when lost in thought. The detective looked concerned.

"I'm here for your testimony." he said, holding up the notepad in his hand and the pen in the other. "After that, you can ask me any questions you have about the investigation as it currently stands. Is that alright with you?"

Izuku nodded, not trusting himself to do anything else, before he remembered something he probably needed to add.

"I-I... I think I got hit in the head..." he admitted. "My memory is... patchy. I-I can't remember some stuff..."

Tsukauchi inhaled sharply, before visibly calming himself with a hand on the back of his head. He nodded slowly, before clicking the pen and readying himself.

"Understood." he nodded. "I'll add that as a disclaimer. Now... start wherever you believe is most relevant."

"We were at a movie..." Izuku began.

He told the detective the whole story, as far as he could remember. The film, his friends, the debate between Shoji and Iida, the phone call, the panic in his mother's voice, his trip to his home, his mother... answering the door...

Tears rushed to his eyes and he had to swallow down the lump that rapidly built itself in his throat, nodding when Tsukauchi asked if he was alright. He'd have to get over it, the police needed his testimony... he continued. The hug... the needle, he was pretty sure the prick was a needle, then the smack on the head. He remembered a little more now, a knife, cutting his shirt... but not his chest, she was taking off the buttons.

His breathing sped up as more memories flooded his mind, relayed to Tsukauchi as he recalled them. His mother had melted, and the shapeshifting villain from the League, Toga, she had been there. She had been... naked. She had giggled and led him toward his bedroom, up the stairs, he hadn't fought, he felt so strange and almost like he was floating. She had pushed him on to the bed, straddled his torso with her legs and kissed him on the lips and...

"Midoriya!" A hand pressed against his chest, urgent and firm, and he noticed the green arcs of electricity darting around his arms as he wrapped them around his head. "Midoriya... do you believe it's possible she..."

Tsukauchi didn't want to say it. Izuku didn't want to hear it. He was fully aware of it, he had heard of it before. It was a rarer crime now, when any man or woman could possess a superhuman ability with which to fight back. Few wanted to risk it any more, but... it was still a crime, a severe one. Izuku's eyes went wide, he stared down at his own knees as he curled up on himself, forming a little ball. He felt phantom lips pressed against his own, unwanted pleasure in the pit of his stomach. He shook his head, trying to get the sight of red eyes out of his brain, away from him, even as they twinkled with lust and sadistic glee.

"Yes..." he whispered. "She... she... I didn't want to... but she..."

He began to cry. Tsukauchi swallowed, hard, and jotted down a few more notes. The doctors had already noted that Midoriya bore the signs of forced sexual activity, but they hadn't been certain. Now that he had a testimony... he put his head in his hands and let out a deep sigh.

"Thank you for your bravery, Midoriya." he said, wishing sorely that he could say something more. "I... I need to get this to the station. Aizawa had to go home, so one of your other teachers will be here to take his place tonight. Will that... will that be alright?"

Izuku managed to nod, in between heaving sobs, and Tsukauchi took his leave with all the quiet speed he could manage. Just outside the door, he found himself encircled by multiple pro heroes, members of UA faculty all. Present Mic, Eraserhead, Snipe, Midnight, Hound Dog and Ectoplasm were all present.

"Our worst fears have... been confirmed." he said, nodding once. "Toga Himiko has sexually assaulted Midoriya Izuku."

"So she wasn't lying..." Snipe spoke first, a hand pressing against his gas mask. "Shit. Got some news of my own... doctors have confirmed the OTHER worst fear."

"Oh no..." Midnight covered her mouth, eyes going wide. Everybody else looked about as uncomfortable and upset by the news. "No..."

"Toga Himiko is pregnant." Snipe confirmed, the severity of the news lending his voice a gravitas he otherwise typically avoided. "And Midoriya is the father."


	3. In Which Tokoyami Learns The Truth

It was quiet in training ground sixteen for a time. The simulated urban centre was often the sight of trials and tribulations for the many heroes in training of Class 1-A, but today it was silent. Fumikage Tokoyami wouldn't have it any other way; he revelled in the silence and stillness, sitting cross legged atop one of the many buildings with his head bowed and his hands on his knees. This was his pastime; where his fellow students would play video games or trade banter, he would take an hour or so of the weekend to meditate on his lonesome.

Usually, anyways. Sometimes he was dragged off on some hijinks-filled adventure by his classmates, that resulted in at least one minor injury and a whole lot of loud noises. Tokoyami couldn't even bring himself to be irritated with his troublesome friends; their antics were endearing at times, even if they were wholly unnecessary. They helped him keep his humours in balance, and prevented him from falling into what Sero had once referred to as 'that bottomless pit of angst and edgy one-liners' that he knew he teetered upon the edge of constantly.

The irony of the inherently edgy nature of such a thought did not escape him. He had his friends to thank for that.

The sun above was at its zenith, showing the time to be midday. Under his jacket Dark Shadow was whining quietly about the brightness, but Tokoyami didn't have to speak aloud to remind it that this was the goal; it was a chance for Tokoyami to clear his thoughts without Dark Shadow's interference, the same chance afforded his Quirk whenever Tokoyami slept. Dark Shadow begrudgingly agreed to give him some peace and quiet, as he always did when Tokoyami was meditating, and so the silence returned.

Then someone with the heavy footsteps of one who wanted to be heard approached from behind. Tokoyami didn't move as the footsteps stopped beside him, before the figure settled down into a sitting position beside him. With his eyes closed, he couldn't see who it was, but he had his suspicions. Whoever they were, they were quite good at maintaining silence and stillness in equal measure, though Tokoyami noticed a somewhat floral fragrance in the air.

But he didn't look. He simply remained as he was, meditating in silence. And as they always did these past few days, his thoughts drifted with inevitability to Izuku Midoriya.

He was to return from the hospital tomorrow. That would prove an interesting experience; Tokoyami had gone to visit him with Shoji just the prior day, the two of them bringing him the notes from their various classes for that week. Midoriya may have been bedridden for three weeks, but he had personally requested the help of the class in keeping up on his notes. Tokoyami wondered if it wasn't perhaps a means of distracting himself from his mother's fate.

Dark Shadow wondered if it was even their business, and Tokoyami agreed that it wasn't. He was no stranger to the idea of distracting oneself from the darkness that filled every corner of the wretched world he inhabited. Dark Shadow chuckled at that thought, and Tokoyami had to remind himself that he knew such edge-ridden thoughts were unhealthy.

As was denial, some tiny rebellious part of himself whispered. He knew that too. Shouldn't he warn Midoriya?

"No." he said, without realizing he had spoken aloud.

Whoever was beside him didn't move. Curious; they must possess impressive focus. He hadn't been quiet at all, his sudden statement snapping the silence over its knee and spitting on the broken remains. He had to wonder again who it was, but in interest of maintaining this otherwise relaxing stillness, he refrained from looking.

So they remained, for an hour, then longer, time slipping away. Tokoyami let his thoughts wander free, pondering everything from upcoming training events to the potential change Midoriya's return would bring. It was a good afternoon to do so, the sun overhead making him feel warm and comfortable in his casual hoodie and jeans, with the wafting mid-autumn breeze bringing just enough of the season's typical chill to keep him balanced. The mystery meditator beside him didn't disturb him once.

Then, after nearly two hours of inner focus, the unknown person moved. They rose, turning and walking toward the door, this time much quieter. Before it creaked open, he heard them speak.

"Thank you." said a voice, soft and kind, that of a girl likely his age.

Then she was gone, the door clicking shut.

His mind ran through the possibilities. Yaoyorozu, perhaps. No. She'd had a certain perfume surrounding herself today, a more sweet fragrance. Not Jiro either; he knew her preferred form of meditation involved the idle playing of stringed instruments. He could eliminate Ashido by virtue of his general certainty the girl didn't know what the word 'meditation' meant. Hagakure was eliminated through a similar process. Not Ochaco either; she was visiting Midoriya today with Iida and Asui.

Tsu, Dark Shadow corrected him. He ignored it for the time being.

So... perhaps one of Class 1-B's students? Distinctly possible, though he wasn't well associated with any of them. He barely even knew their names, despite his best efforts to remember. He shrugged his shoulders slightly. It wasn't really his business, he supposed. They had been quiet and polite. Moreso than him, even. Damn the occasional rebelliousness of his inner daemons.

He remained on the rooftop for another half hour, by his estimate, and then silently rose from his knees. Dark Shadow loved this part the best; it was a chance for it to metaphorically and literally stretch its wings. Tokoyami walked briskly to the edge of the rooftop and stepped off without a moment's hesitation, Dark Shadow emerging from under his clothes and forming a pair of black wings from his shoulders. Spread wide, they were enough to let him glide down the street of the training facility, bringing him to a gentle landing on his feet after half a minute of falling.

The fact he kept his arms crossed the entire time was not him trying to look cool, he managed to convince himself.

Dark Shadow laughed at him.

He returned to the dorms at almost the exact same time as Iida and Uraraka, an interesting synchronicity that went unnoticed when he noticed their obvious distress. Uraraka looked beside herself, eyes still red from crying, while Iida was so steel-rod straight his spine was quivering with the effort. The two were standing outside the front door of the dormitory, apparently debating entering.

"Good afternoon." Tokoyami said by way of greeting, nodding his head to the both of them. "Is something the matter?"

Uraraka looked at him, and he saw that she really had been crying. Iida didn't even turn his head; he just nodded.

"Midoriya... told us... everything that happened." Iida said. "We were debating bringing it up to the rest of the class."

"He was assaulted by a villain who had killed his mother." Tokoyami said, cocking his head to one side in confusion. "Was that not all?"

Both Uraraka and Iida failed to meet his gaze, and he nodded once. It wasn't, then. There was something more. Something much worse, apparently. Tokoyami stepped closer, putting a hand on Uraraka's shoulder, then another on Iida's. The two stared at him, likely surprised by the idea of Tokoyami Fumikage initiating physical contact of any sort. Tokoyami didn't mind. He had been trying to show them the severity of his next words.

"Everybody in Class 1-A is Midoriya's friend." he reassured them. "No matter what happened, none of us will judge him or think him lesser. If he has asked you to relay the truth, you must do so. Obfuscation will only lead to more pain down the road for all involved."

Iida swallowed, hard.

"I see." he said. "I... I will."

"But-" Uraraka tried to interject, before Tokoyami squeezed her shoulder.

"Tell me first." he offered. "Should you change your mind about telling the class, you know as well as anyone I can keep a secret."

Iida nodded again, while Uraraka just sniffled. Then, tentatively, she reached up and touched Tokoyami's hand. The boy nodded again, reassuringly, squeezing her shoulder tight. Uraraka was the physical sort, touch meant more than words to her. He knew this by now.

She nodded as well, before looking at Iida. The taller boy visibly steeled himself, before speaking.

"The villain who attacked Midoriya and murdered his mother was Toga Himiko of the League of Villains." Iida explained. "However... there is more to her crime."

Tokoyami recalled the girl in question, from conversation moreso than firsthand experience. He knew she was a shape-changer and face-stealer, capable of terrible acts of violence of cruelty. But what more could she have done to Midoriya? She hadn't killed him, only...

No.

"She... sexually assaulted Midoriya." Iida said, forcing the words from his lips.

Dark Shadow, fed by the impossibly powerful surge of anger and sorrow within its master, erupted from his back. It filled the afternoon air behind him, a vast avian shape that blocked out the sun and engulfed the front door in a deep darkness. The wave of killer intent he sent out in that moment was felt all across UA's expansive campus, students and faculty alike feeling a shudder run down their spine. Tokoyami had to physically fight the overwhelming urge to destroy, to batter and break and avenge his classmate upon the world, forcing Dark Shadow back down.

"I see." he managed, his beak clicking shut after he forced the words out. "This is... unacceptable."

He thought of Midoriya, gentle and innocent, yet dedicated and heroic to a fault. He thought of green lighting and broken bones, cataclysmic power contained within a boy whose demeanour was that of sapient sunshine, whose kindness was matched only by his tenacity. Already more of a hero than any of his peers, a fact Tokoyami could accept with ease.

He thought of that virtue, that innocence, stained by the depravity of one villain, and he had to fight back Dark Shadow's screaming reflection of his own fury. He wanted to screech his anger to the world.

"The class must know." he said instead, nodding, eyes filled with steel. "If it is Midoriya's wish for them to be informed... you cannot deny him this."

Iida nodded, apparently unable to do much else. Uraraka matched his gesture. Tokoyami followed them inside after Iida opened the door, barking a request... no, an order, for everybody present to come to the main room, informing them he had returned from visiting Midoriya, who sought to relay a message to them.

Word was relayed and within five minutes nineteen of Class 1-A's twenty students were present, barring the subject of the coming discussion. Nobody failed to notice Tokoyami's darkened demeanour, though only Uraraka and Iida knew the cause. Most were excited to hear from Midoriya, a few nervous. Had something happened? There was an underlying fear that Midoriya would drop out from UA after all that had happened, a doubt that had poisoned many a soul in the class. The only ones who had disregarded the idea were Bakugou, who knew Midoriya's drive better than anyone, Uraraka and Iida, who were closer to him than any other, and Kirishima, who simply couldn't accept the possibility of 1-A's manliest member dropping out.

Iida stared at all of them for a moment. He told them Midoriya had asked he and Uraraka to tell them the full story of what had happened, and that he had told them some additional information that put everything in a new light.

Then, he repeated what he had said to Tokoyami.

Bakugou blew a hole in one of the couches and took off, walking out the back door and setting off a series of violent explosions outside while screaming at the sky. Todoroki set the left side of his armchair on fire, the right side being encased in a block of ice, before regaining control of his Quirk and undoing most of the damage. The rest of the class reacted in less exaggerated ways, typically gasps of shock and a few tears.

Bakugou didn't return until Kirishima retrieved him half an hour later, his arms shaking from over-exertion and tears in his eyes. Wisely, nobody mentioned the latter to him. Todoroki had already looked up the prices of a new armchair and couch, and was taking care of purchasing replacements for the damaged ones. The fact that he froze his mouse to the mousepad several times was something he ignored. The air was filled with the smell of fresh baked goods, Sato handling the news in his own way.

Tokoyami retreated to his room, standing alone in the gloom and letting Dark Shadow surge out to fill every nook and cranny. He stewed in his fury for a time, venting his frustration into the essence of his own power while it soundproofed the room, ranting and raving about the unfairness of it all, that this should happen to one of the most heroic people he knew.

Dark Shadow listened in silence, for an hour, until Tokoyami finally calmed down enough to sit down on his bed, retracting his Quirk back into himself and gathering his thoughts anew. There was one conclusion he came to immediately.

He would help Midoriya, in whatever way he could.

He was aware somewhere deep inside himself that the rest of Class 1-A was making the very same vow.


	4. In Which Midoriya Runs Away

Izuku had come home.

The moment that thought passed through his mind, he rejected it. UA wasn't home. Heights Alliance wasn't home. It was a home, a place he could stay and be safe... but it wasn't home. It wasn't where he'd grown up, with his little room full of All Might paraphernalia and...

And his mother. Izuku stiffened up where he stood, one hand on the doorknob, his other now pressed against his chest. It still hurt, so much, to think of her. The funeral wasn't for another week, UA was paying for it at All Might's request, but every time he tried to think of her all he could feel was that throbbing in his chest. She was gone. She was dead. Toga Himiko killed her, tore her apart with knives and cleavers and anything else sharp, and drank deeply of her blood to take her shape.

All so she could put the needle into his back and take him by the hand up to his room where All Might smiled from every angle as she-

Izuku crushed the doorknob without realizing, eyes going wide when he saw the damage. The brass sphere had been obliterated in his super-powered grip, left a crumpled mess sticking to the door itself by a thin stem of metal. He took a step back, before he saw the door swing open from the inside.

Kirishima was standing there, confused, before he saw Izuku and his eyes went wide. Behind him stood Ashido, one hand on his shoulder, and behind them stood several more of his classmates. They seemed to be waiting for him. Was he late, Izuku wondered? Had he been standing out here locked in thought that long? Why were they waiting? Was there something they wanted to say? They knew what had happened... did they blame him?

No, he told himself, there was no way. These were his friends, his peers, fellow heroes in training. There was no way they would blame him for what had happened. They had visited him in the hospital. They had brought him gifts and kind words and the occasional gentle embrace. They wanted to help.

But now they knew the full story, something deep inside him with an oily voice said. They knew what he had done. What Toga had done. They knew how pathetic he was, how he couldn't even save his mother, couldn't even fight off one girl his age who had pushed him down onto the bed and pressed her lips against his and lifted herself up and-

"Deku-bro?" said Kirishima, raising an eyebrow. "You want to come in?"

Izuku took a tentative step forward, then another, then a third. He was at the threshold now, Kirishima stepping back to let him pass. He took another step, and then froze again, one foot in and one foot out. He couldn't. He couldn't do it. He couldn't just enter this building again, not after what she had done, not after he had failed his mother so utterly, not after...

He heard somebody whispering in the back, and his eyes found Mineta leaning up and in towards Kaminari. The two froze when they saw him, looks of guilt flashing over their faces, particularly Kaminari.

"I..." It was the first time Izuku had spoken to any of them in several days, besides Iida and Uraraka, who were standing by with concern evident on their faces. "I... I'm sorry, I can't..."

He began to backpedal, taking a step back, and then another. He never should have told Iida and Uraraka, he never should have said anything. He must have looked so weak to them, so pathetic, just the worthless shitty Deku he'd always been and would always be no matter how many times other people gave him power. He stepped back and back and back until he turned and ran, blind panic filling him with fear and his limbs with lighting, Full Cowling carrying him away at a breakneck speed.

He didn't know how long he ran for, he just ran and ran until his heart and head were both pounding too hard to ignore and he couldn't feel them staring, that itching sensation of eyes watching him, analyzing him, judging his failure. He took a deep breath and looked around; he was in a grassy field. One of the training fields, maybe, given that it was ringed by trees with a fence along the far side. He stood there, silent and alone, for a long moment.

Then he dropped down onto his butt, hugged his knees with his arms, and willed himself to disappear. Why had he done that? Those were his friends, his friends, he kept reminding himself, the people who would stand by him in times like these! He had done the same for them, for Iida and Kirishima and all the rest when their lives got harder. They would do the same for him, right?

Right?

Except Iida didn't let his brother die. Kirishima couldn't have stopped Bakugou from being taken. The latter was Izuku's fault through and through, for the same reason as his most recent failure. He hadn't been fast enough, strong enough, tough enough. He hadn't been good enough, the same way he was never good enough, the same way he couldn't and wouldn't ever be good enough. He was Deku. Shitty shitty shitty Deku. Useless. Helpless. Hopeless. Worthless.

Unbidden, words from the past flickered in his mind. Bakugou had given him some advice once. Advice he mocked, advice he disregarded... but now... now it seemed almost appealing. He had a Quirk now, for all the good it had done him. For all the good it had done the world. His mother was dead. The League of Villains was still out there. There were still murders and robberies every day. The world was still in shambles.

The world he was supposed to inherit. The world he was supposed to use this power he had been given to protect and preserve. The world All Might had left for him.

All Might, who smiled down at his weeping face as she bounced up and down and up and down, promising he would always be there even as she gasped and groaned and clawed deep cuts in his shoulders and called him 'Deku-kun', an expression intended to be reassuring twisted into a mocking grin. I am here, it said, and I am not impressed. What sort of hero lets this happen to them self? What sort of hero just lays there helpless?

I am here, he promised.

Except he wasn't.

Izuku's dark reverie was interrupted by the sound of a twig crunching underfoot, and a girlish exclamation of surprise. His head snapped up, free of his knees, and he looked all around. There was a girl amidst the trees, with a bob of brunette hair that hid her eyes and a tiny pink mushroom in her hand. He blinked away tears as she looked up and noticed him in return.

"Oh, hi there!" she said, smiling and waving. "I-I saw somebody sprint in here like, super fast, and I got worried and decided to make sure nothing was wrong!"

Izuku stared for a long moment.

"So... is anything wrong?" she asked, softer now, her exuberance fading a little into trepidatious curiosity. "You... you don't look so..."

Her eyes flashed with recognition, and she pointed a finger. Izuku flinched, despite himself.

"Oh!" she exclaimed, as it all clicked. "You're Midoriya, right? I-I'm sorry for disturbing you, I just figured-"

"It's fine." Izuku cut her off, shaking his head. "I-it's my fault, I-I d-didn't realize I'd be d-disturbing anyone... I'm sorry..."

She looked him up and down for a second, before nodding once. Wordlessly she took three big steps forward and wrapped her arms around him in a hug.

Izuku knew in his logical brain that the gesture was intended to be friendly, comforting and kind. This girl wanted to help, and she thought this was the best way to do it. But the emotional part of his brain felt himself being wrapped up in a hug again, just like before with the needle and the kiss, and he tensed before bursting into action. He threw her arms off of himself with his own forearms before punching her hard in the chest with an open palm, pushing her back and knocking the wind out of her lungs. She gasped in surprise, and he took the opportunity to leap backward some fifteen feet, dropping into a fighting stance.

He wouldn't let her take him, he wouldn't let it happen again, he'd fight and fight and he wouldn't be used he wouldn't be a toy for her amusement not again he WOULDN'T

And then she looked up at him, gasping for air, eyes wide with surprise and fear alike, and his logical brain snapped back into control. He took a step forward, hands coming up, open and peaceful, tears rushing to his eyes in that frustratingly Midoriya way of theirs.

"I-I-I'm s-so sorry..." he gasped. "I-I-I d-didn't m-mean to... I mean I... I didn't want... you..."

He drew closer and closer, before he heard more footsteps and a shout or two. He knew the voices; Iida, Kirishima, Bakugou, Yaoyorozu. They were looking for him. They were going to find him. They were going to see him and know what had happened and see what he had done and how wasn't a hero and Izuku didn't know what to do or what to say and the girl on the floor still looked terrified and finally he did the only thing he knew to do.

He turned and, once again, he ran away, cursing himself all the while.


	5. In Which Snipe Helps

"Have they found him yet?"

Perhaps for the first time, Principal Nezu lamented his decision to expand UA's training grounds. It had seemed an obvious idea at first; the more terrain and territory the students could practice in, the more effective they would be as heroes. He had never even considered the idea that a student would use the expansive campus UA offered to hide from his peers and teachers alike.

He was sitting in his office, a vast space on the top floor of the main building, a wall of glass overlooking the central campus itself to his back. Across his expansive mahogany desk sat All Might, in his withered skeletal form. He was all bones and hard angles, his face a narrow trapezoid inverted with a bony point at the chin, his eyes black voids in which a blue ring of burning sapphire made him look half a monster and half a hero. He had a tentative smile on his face, emboldened perhaps by Nezu's delayed response.

Then Nezu shook his head, and he swallowed back his disappointment even while his head drooped downward. Nezu knew he was taking this harder than most; Midoriya was his protege, after all. His chosen successor. That the boy should have suffered so much, should be suffering so much, inside and out... All Might was suffering with him.

"Most of the staff are searching." he said, nodding. "Young Komori, from 1-B, did find him in training ground eleven, but after she attempted to calm him down he bolted again."

"He's scared." All Might reasoned. "He's scared and I never even thought to... damn it all, I'm such an idiot! I should have been there with him, brought him back from the hospital!"

"You did have a Class to teach..." Nezu reasoned. "This is as much my fault as it is yours. Snipe had the day off today, I should have simply asked him to bring Midoriya back here. But I had hoped he would be okay coming back on his own."

"And now he's gone." All Might sighed. "I trust you've already set him up for therapy, sessions with Hound Dog?"

"Hound Dog is a counsellor." Nezu replied, shaking his head. "I've made a few calls; we'll be bringing in an outside specialist. She was a student here a few years ago, though she never quite made it to heroism. She chose a different path instead."

All Might had no idea who Nezu was talking about, of this the principal was quite sure. That wasn't a problem though; Nezu had the utmost confidence in his chosen specialist.

All Might was anxious, fidgeting in his chair, but Nezu knew as well as he did that there was nothing he could do. He had no time any more, not after that climactic battle with All For One saw the fire of his Quirk die just about completely. While the lack of transformations and combat had stabilized his body, apparently finally allowing his internal organs to start healing in earnest, he was no longer able to use One For All for any more than a second or two. Hence why he was sitting in here, and not running around looking for his protege out there.

Nezu stared glanced at his PC monitor when he saw a notification pop up; a security warning. Somebody had damaged the campus perimeter fence on the south-east side. He blinked, before checking the staff trackers implanted in their earpieces. Snipe was closest to that sector by far. He pressed a button and spoke into his headset.

"Roku, we have a possible breach of the security fence." he said. "South-east, just a minute or two from you. Can you investigate?"

Karyoku Roku, better known to the wider world as Snipe, fulfilled the request immediately. His gun snapped up free of its holster, spinning in his hand as he took of running toward the designated direction. He wasn't sure what to expect, so he did what he did best and chose to expect everything. He began loading his revolver; a standard round, an armour-piecing round, a cryo-round for targets with non-standard biology, a non-lethal rubber round, and an explosive in case he was dealing with big game. His gloved fingers danced across the cylinder as he loaded each shot, colour coded for ease of identification, and then slid it back home and gave it a whirl.

He exited the tree-line and stopped dead in his tracks. One finger came up to his earpiece as he lowered his gun.

"Nezu," he said quietly, as to not disturb the person before him. "False alarm; sector is clear. I'll keep looking. Goin' dark."

He pressed a button to turn off his communicator before taking a deliberate step forward, then another, exiting the cover of the tree-line and approaching Midoriya with his pistol back in its holster. The kid was down on the ground next to the fence, back pressed to it and head ducked down between his legs. He looked like he was hiding from something, a look that made Roku also glance around. As far as he could tell, it was only Midoriya and himself around, not another soul to be seen or heard.

He cleared his throat, quietly enough as to not startle the boy, but Midoriya still looked up rather quickly, nearly cracking his head on the concrete wall behind him. His eyes went wide as Snipe approached, before the hero stopped about eight feet from him and dropped down to sit on the floor, cross-legged.

"Midoriya." Snipe said, nodding once. "What're you doin' out here all on your lonesome?"

He let his cowboy-persona shine, knowing Midoriya's obsession with heroes and hoping to provide the boy with something more comfortable. If he couldn't handle people right now, then maybe somebody larger than life would be a better fit for the situation. He tipped his hat and waited for a response, patient and quiet.

"S-Snipe-Sensei..." Midoriya said, eyes wide. "J-j-just... thinking..."

"Mind if I ask what about?" Snipe replied, cocking his head to one side. "If it ain't too much trouble, mind."

Midoriya swallowed, looking back down at the grass between his feet again. He looked about half a moment's pressure away from snapping like a frayed string, so Snipe gave him some time to ready his response. He reached into the satchel at his hip and pulled out a thin white cloth, laying down on the grass. Then he grabbed his gun from his holster and began quietly unloading it, sorting through the bullets and arranging them in a nice circular pattern on the cloth.

He could feel Midoriya's eyes on him, even as he pulled off his gloves and grabbed his kit from the same satchel the cloth had come from. A small black plastic box containing everything he needed to clean his revolver, from a small bottle of gun-oil to a full cleaner's kit containing screwdrivers, pipe-floss and several small rags. He took a breath, smiling under his gas-mask, and began disassembling his six-shooter right there.

Midoriya said nothing, but he did scoot a little closer, eyes studying the movements of his teacher's dexterous fingers as he unscrewed and slid the barrel free, before dismantling the grip with the aid of a screwdriver. While he was well aware he could clean it without disassembly, being a double action, he preferred to take his time with matters such as this. He slid the cylinder completely free, placing it down chambers-up, before taking the barrel-brush and starting to clean.

Midoriya watched in silence as he went through every individual step, even going so far as to clean the receiving rod despite that being mostly unnecessary. It felt nice and Midoriya seemed interested in the process. Then he did something different, emptying out his ammo pouch and doing a tally. He had six of each specialized round and twenty-four standard, leading to some fifty-four bullets ending up on the cloth. He noticed Midoriya's hand stray towards one with red markings.

"Armour-piercing." he said, breaking the quiet of the last few minutes. "I keep 'em for big game, mutant types with natural armour and villains wearin' metal or other body armour."

Midoriya's hand retracted immediately, but Snipe reached down and plucked one of the rounds up. It was forty-five, a magnum round, thick and stubby. He held it between two fingers and offered it to Midoriya, who took it with a reverent look in his eye.

"Learned to carry those down in the States." Snipe said. As he had hoped, Midoriya's eyes shot back up to him, the bullet clenched in his fist.

"W-what happened?" he asked.

Snipe grinned and leaned back, one hand holding him up as he lifted the freshly cleaned pistol (still unloaded, of course) with the other.

"My first hero work was in the States." he began. "As a little guy, I loved me those old western flicks. Somethin' about all'a them old legends, craggy faces and steely eyes, spittin' on the ground and takin' out the villains with cold steel and a colder one-liner... they were like the old world's heroes. I was obsessed from the first time I saw John Wayne and James Stewart side by side in 'The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance'."

Snipe chuckled.

"So when I graduated UA, I headed down to the States myself." he continued. "Got an apprenticeship with a hero named Jackalope. Nice lady, ended up bein' the older sister I never had. I worked with her for six years before comin' back home, learnin' the ins and outs of heroism. And that's where I met her."

His voice dropped a little and he leaned in, allowing the tale to build in intensity. Midoriya leaned in too, excited to hear a hero story he'd never heard before.

"Real nasty piece'a work, called herself 'Texas Red'." Snipe said, gesturing upwards with his revolver. "Huge woman, head and a half taller'n me, and I'm not exactly a short feller. Her Quirk let her turn parts of her skin into these scarlet scales that were bulletproof beyond belief, and she was strong as hell to boot. I fought her twice before, and each time had to get myself bailed out by a better hero."

He looked down for a moment, then laughed.

"But round three... third time's the charm, right?" he saw Midoriya nodding rapidly, clearly eager to hear what happened. "It was just me and her, after a bank robbery. The rest of my agency was a while's walk away, so I had to handle this solo. She was grinnin', and her thugs was all hootin' and hollerin'. Then, I pull my piece and cock, and she rushes me."

Snipe pointed the empty pistol and pulled the trigger, the hammer slamming home with a smooth 'click' sound.

"Bang." he accentuated. "Those APs are titanium tipped and tungsten-cored. Not a hunk'a metal or scales alive or otherwise could stop them. The shot went clean through her knee, and she dropped. Bang. Second shot took her other knee. Her thugs all froze while I loaded some new shots and hit her with a knockout right on the dome, one'a them white ones you see there."

Midoriya poked one, finding it strangely soft.

"Rubber." Snipe said by way of an explanation. "I gave one to each of her thugs and then called it in. Cops rounded 'em all up and I got to be the big hero of the day. The Japanese cowboy who dropped one of the biggest criminals in the state. Cut, wrap, god bless America."

He chuckled, raising his pistol in mock salute.

"Heard they were makin' a movie based on it in the States." he added. "Called me up for permission. I told 'em so long as they didn't use my real name it was fine and dandy."

Midoriya was staring at him, having punched the air with a fist when he told the story of the takedown itself. Snipe chuckled, before putting the gun back in its holster.

"There's a moral to the story there, if you can believe it." he said. "Took me a while to figure out myself, but I think I've got it down."

Midoriya suddenly started to mutter, in that way peculiar to him, working through his many thoughts at lightspeed. Snipe listened and waited, before the boy finally raised a finger.

"Always be prepared?" he asked. "Since, you know, you needed the right tool for the job, and when you got it you finally beat your rival?"

"Close, and a decent idea, but it wasn't just the bullets that won me the day." Snipe replied, shaking his head. "It was the attitude. Lemme explain."

He leaned back again.

"After Texas Red kicked my ass a second time, I was havin' some big doubts about the whole heroism gig." he explained, touching a finger to his temple. "I figured if I'd been beaten twice by the same villain, maybe I wasn't such hot stuff. Maybe I was kiddin' myself when I talked about how I was gonna stop every villain who ever crossed my path. I almost hung up my holster and gave up on the job."

His voice grew more somber as he continued speaking.

"Then... I figured something out." he continued. "I realized it wasn't Texas Red who was makin' me feel that way; it was me. I was the one doubtin' myself, wonderin' if was even good enough to be a hero. And that's when it all came together."

He leaned back toward Midoriya, nodding as he did so.

"Failure and success ain't the same as defeat and victory." said Snipe. "A man can fail a hundred times and never no defeat, same way a man can succeed a hundred times and never know victory. What makes it defeat ain't whether your opponent beat you or not; it's whether or not you let yourself stay beat. The only one who can beat you, well and truly defeat you, is you."

Midoriya was listening closely now, obviously taking notes in his head.

"The only way you can truly know defeat is if you can give up, go home, look in the mirror and ask yourself a simple question; is this what I want?" Snipe continued. "And if you've got even the slightest sliver o'doubt 'bout sayin' yes... then it ain't defeat. And all that makes a hero different from a normal man is that a hero NEVER says yes."

Midoriya swallowed, as something seemed to click inside of him. Snipe tucked his bullets away one by one while Midoriya pondered, giving him time with which to think and make his choice. When he was finished, he stood, rising to his feet, and reached a hand down to Midoriya.

"Midoriya Izuku." said Snipe, a little proud of how downright heroic he sounded at that moment. "Are you going to be a hero?"

Silence for a moment.

"Yes!" Midoriya said, grabbing his teacher's hand and letting himself be pulled up to his feet. "I-I... I want to be a hero!"

"Then let's get you back to your friends." Snipe proclaimed, and Midoriya nodded as his expression turned resolute.

Neither noticed that Snipe's ear piece was blinking, having been reactivated from another place. They also didn't notice when it turned back off, Nezu leaning back from his computer and looking up at an awestruck All Might with a smile.

"I think they've got it handled." Nezu said, chuckling. "Now, let's find the camera feed from the dorms and watch what happens next!"


	6. In Which Midoriya Goes Home

For the second time today, Izuku stood at the front door of the Heights Alliance Dormitory, his home for the foreseeable future. He slowly reached for the doorknob, which was still a twisted lump of brass, and turned it slowly. He opened the door, and found himself cross the threshold into the building proper without so much as a moment's panic. Behind him, Iida and Uraraka and Tokoyami all followed his lead, the latter watching the path leading up to the dorm with narrowed eyes. He had almost asked Tokoyami why he seemed so protective, but he also had to admit it was... nice, to have someone looking out for him.

His classmates weren't breathlessly awaiting his arrival this time around. They were content to await his return more casually this time around, it seemed, though he did notice the relieved glances and signs of several of his peers as he passed them on his way to his room. Or, his new room, apparently moved somewhat during his absence. Up a floor and down the hall, nearer now than ever to Aizawa's personal quarters. It was a strange thing, to climb that extra flight of stairs, but he didn't really mind. It was more security, more territory filled with classmates between him and the ground level.

He spent a few minutes pacing back and forth in the room, leaving his friends alone in the hall, to quietly retreat back to their own rooms. His mind was racing, with trepidation and his newly rediscovered conviction all in one. He still had doubts, fears, that ever-lingering sensation of hollow misery that ate at his insides when he thought of his mother. He didn't understand half of what had happened, and none of it made any sense when he tried to consider the why of it all. Why his mother? Why Toga? Why... why would she... do THAT to him?

He didn't understand. He felt like he never would. But he knew that he would have to live with that, and that was enough for him. So he stood alone in his bedroom, and then walked toward the window, past boxes stuffed with his belongings. He opened the pane of glass all the way, letting in the fresh breeze, and then stepped up and onto the windowsill with one foot to lean out into the open air.

Then he stepped out, and into the sky.

He fell fast, at first, before he activated Full Cowling. Green lightning coursed all along his body and he reached out with his legs, sprinting in the air at first until he attained a matched speed. Then he was running along the wall, straight down toward the ground below, and he came to a running stop, skidding along the grass and ending up a good twenty feet away from the building itself.

He braced himself, then took off running again, this time back up the side of the wall. He needed to practice. He had been hospitalized for three weeks, three weeks without training or practice, which was unacceptable if he was to be the next pillar of peace. He would need to be the best, the strongest and fastest and toughest, and he couldn't do that if he let his ability, skills and body atrophy away. He ran up the side of the building, hands finding minute purchase purely to propel himself higher, legs pumping, and came back in through the window and rolled into his room.

Then he turned and did it all over again, and again, ten times until he stopped for the last time outside the dorm. He opened the door of his own accord, without his friends at his back, and made his way to the kitchen to grab a protein bar. Sato was there, baking something, and he didn't notice Izuku until the sound of the wrapper crinkling made him look up from where he was rapidly whisking cake batter to see his classmate leaning against the pantry, panting and sweaty and utterly demolishing an energy bar.

"Hey Midoriya!" he greeted, grinning. "Good to see you back."

Izuku just smiled, raising a hand as he consumed. It was good to be back, he decided, especially now that he had remembered just what it was he was meant to be doing, why he was here. How he had ever doubted his friends he didn't know, couldn't know, but that was okay. Not knowing was something that could be later remedied. For now he was content simply knowing that they did care, they did want to help him, and that he wasn't alone in this.

He stepped forward, toward Sato.

"Can I help?" he asked, and Sato grinned.

"Actually, I could really use somebody to work on the frosting," he said. "So if you wanna grab some of the confectioner's sugar..."

Fifteen minutes later the boys were sitting together, a pair of chairs from the dining table pulled into the kitchen to serve as their seats. They were watching the cake bake, slowly but surely, and as Izuku had accidentally made some three times the necessary frosting they were eating the excess with spoons while they waited. It was a break in Izuku's diet plan, and Sato knew he'd crash from it later, but the former didn't mind and the latter was careful with how much of it he ate.

At one point Todoroki made to slip inside only to pause in the doorway and stare at the two, before quietly asking if he could have some too. A minute later all three of them were sitting together, enjoying the peace and the smell of a marbled vanilla-chocolate cake in the oven. Todoroki kept stealing sidelong glances at Izuku, who didn't really mind. Todoroki had visited of his own accord several times in the hospital, apparently because his mother was in the same building.

That made Izuku remember, and he snapped his fingers, startling both boys.

"Todoroki..." he said, softly, as to not disturb the peace. "When are you going to visit your mother next?"

Todoroki stared for a moment.

"Sunday." he replied. "Why?"

"I... well, I was wondering if maybe I-I could... join you?" Izuku asked. "N-not that you need to b-bring me along, it-it's fine if you'd rather go by yourself."

Todoroki stared at him with those mismatched eyes for a long moment, considering the request, before finally nodding after what felt to Izuku like an eternity and a half.

"Of course." he nodded. "She has wanted to meet you for some time."

"Great!" Izuku felt relieved, smiling at Todoroki before looking back to the cake.

It was good to be home, he decided.


	7. In Which Dabi Says No

"I knew he'd send someone eventually..." Toga's voice was a low, bemused drawl, her head swaying back and forth on her shoulders like a metronome, hands propped in the cot by her hips where she sat. "I was just hoping it'd be somebody fun... you're kinda boring, Dabi."

Dabi ignored her taunt, stepping from the shadowy corner of the cell in silence. Behind him Kurogiri's portal disappeared with a quiet vorpal sound that itched his teeth, and he stared down the bloodsucking teenager before him. Toga was all wrapped up in prison-jumpsuit orange, sitting casual as could be, bare feet kicking back and forth under her as she bummed her own jaunty little tune. He couldn't stand her inability to sit still, heat rising at the corners of her scars, building along the edges. Her red eyes were glowing with something that screamed 'not right', irises like cracked glass spiderwebbed with lines where the facade of sanity had broken away to reveal the madness burning beneath bright and undaunted by her cold grey surroundings.

She stared at him with those terrible eyes and smiled, pointed canines glinting in the low light of the single fluorescent bulb illuminating the cell itself. Dabi didn't speak, not yet; it was clear from her giggles she wasn't quite done talking.

"I mean..." she continued, head still moving from side to side, a cobra hypnotized by the pendulum held before it. "Twice is all funny and says weird stuff and then the same weird stuff but backwards. Magne's Magne. Compress has that fun stage-magician gimmick and the slapstick. Even Shigaraki wears those hands and scratches and looks all zombie-ish. But you...?"

She cooed as he stepped closer, looking him in the eyes. Cold dead blue met broken burning red and the red splintered just a little more. Dabi had to resist the urge to shiver, in spite of the heat building in him, the cremation fire roaring to be let loose so it correct this mistake that had been made flesh. Then she frowned.

"You're just an angry edgy arsonist..." she said. "And that's not fun at all. You growl and stomp and grin and act all cool and you're not... you're just the straight man with the blank stare. And that's bo~~ring... just like you."

One finger came up and poked his nose. He was too surprised to get angry, and she started to giggle again when he took a startled step backwards, fingers curling around two fistfuls of blue fire that sparked into being almost instantly. He fought the urge to burn, to purge, to make clean the world once more... he willed the fire away and swallowed hard, before lowering his hands and stepping forward again.

He loomed over her, tall and scarecrow thin with the wiry physique of a malnourished street punk. She clearly wasn't afraid, staring up at him and easily meeting his cold gaze with a smile, casual as could be. He had known she wouldn't be afraid; nothing scared the broken, and little scared him. But he had been hoping for something at least hinting at fear, trepidation perhaps, or nervousness. He would have settled for an anxious smile, something a little less sure.

"Shigaraki's pissed." he said, voice a growl. "Midoriya was his toy to play with, not yours. And he doesn't share."

She smiled.

"Too bad for him..." she said. "Besides, he's just jealous."

Dabi blinked.

"Jealous of what?" he asked, before shaking his head. "You broke the rules, Toga. Midoriya was for Shigaraki. Nobody else was supposed to touch him. And NOBODY was supposed to go after his mother."

She stuck her tongue out and blew a raspberry like the spiteful, cocky child she was, and he cocked back a hand and slapped her across the face. She didn't even blink.

"Ooo, do I call you daddy now?" she asked, and he failed to bite back the shudder. "HE hits harder anyways..."

Dabi grimaced.

"What the fuck is wrong with you?" he asked, breaking away from the 'stoic punisher' act and letting his disdain show plainly.

"Mmmm... lots..." she sighed, swaying back and forth again. "Daddy used to hit me and momma locked me in the cupboard when I was bad... and bad meant all sorts of things. Depended on what she whether she was smoking, snorting or injecting beforehand."

Dabi didn't speak. He listened, with a lot slowly forming in his stomach.

"I never got to play with toys..." she continued, the madness in her eyes draining as she stared at the wall behind him. "Daddy would throw them out or momma would break them. And school wasn't much better... everybody called me 'vamp-girl' or 'bloodsucker' or 'leech' and sometimes I just got 'freak'. They'd steal my books or throw things at me when the teachers weren't looking."

Her expression grew more and more distant as she continued.

"One day we moved." she said. "Just for a little. There was a new school, new bullies. There was a boy, loud and angry with spiky blond hair who picked on everyone. He hit me, used explosions..."

She started to smile, almost wistfully.

"And then there was this other boy." she said. "Green hair and eyes, cute freckles... he told the blonde to stop, told him he was being a villain. So blondie started hitting him, and I got to run away... but after he was done I came back. The green boy was laying there, and there was some blood on his lip and I remember I felt so~~ thirsty..."

She licked her lips.

"It was the first time I ever actually drank blood." she said. "It was DELICIOUS. And he was crying a little and I kissed him on the cheek. And he hugged me and asked if I was okay..."

Her smile grew, the fire building in her eyes again.

"We moved again a couple days later, daddy couldn't afford to stay in one place for long..." she said. "But I always remembered that green boy. I always wanted him... to kiss him and hold him and make him MINE..."

She squirmed on the bed a little, licking her lips and grinding her thighs together and Dabi felt sick to his stomach watching.

"And now..." She looked back up at him. "He's mine. Forever and ever. I took him. Shigaraki's just jealous."

"You know I have to kill you." Dabi said.

She smiled.

"I know." she replied, head turning to one side a little as she positively BEAMED at him. "But do you wanna know WHY Shigaraki's jealous?"

Dabi shook his head, but she took one hand gently pressed it to her stomach and that pit in his stomach tripled in size when she smiled and rubbed it in a circle, cooing softly.

"Because Izu-kun gave me a present..." she said. "And Shigaraki can never have them."

Dabi's fingers curled into fists.

"You..." He couldn't find the words. "He... you... you're..."

"Yep..." she smiled. "Twins. They're gonna be so~~ cute! I wonder if they'll have my hair, or his? Or maybe one of each? His eyes and my hair and my eyes and his hair? Do green and red go well together? Blonde and green do..."

Dabi took an unwitting step back, shaking his head slowly, even as she fell into her fantasy, muttering about colours and hair and eyes and names. His hands ignited and he willed the fires to go away but he couldn't, they wouldn't, they stayed and burned and he fought the urge to lash out.

"Kurogiri." he said, at first not knowing he was even speaking. "Pull me out of here. I can't do this... I-I... I can't..."

"Master Tomura will be upset." Kurogiri warned from the shadows, his voice distant and faint.

"Fuck Tomura." Dabi replied, whirling around and staring at the two floating yellow lights in the shadow. "I don't... I won't... I'm not a fucking baby-killer."

For a long moment there was dreadful silence between the two of them, broken only by the sound of Toga murmuring to herself behind him. Then, without a spoken word, a portal yawned open before him, and Dabi staggered through and nearly tripped on the concrete floor of their warehouse hideout.

Shigaraki Tomura was there, hands behind his back with a cold stare for Dabi, who stood in the centre of the vast, almost empty room with a cold sweat still running down his back.

"Is it done?" Tomura asked, voice dry and rasping.

"No." Dabi replied. "And I'm not doing it."

Tomura didn't blink. He didn't twitch. He just raised a single eyebrow, and that tiny gesture was more menacing than any snarl or snapped retort.

"She's pregnant." Dabi declared.

That eyebrow went higher, and Tomura's calm snapped with an almost audible sound.

"She's what?" he said.

"Pregnant." Dabi replied, the adrenaline of the moment getting to him as he took a step forward, toward Tomura, then another, and another. "Bred. Knocked up. Whatever the fuck you wanna call it. She's got babies in her, and that Midoriya kid's the father."

He came closer, and Tomura didn't move as he bore down on the slightly shorter villain.

"I'll kill Yakuza." Dabi declared, voice growing more frantic with every word. "I'll kill heroes. Fuck, I'll even kill heroes-in-training. But I don't barbecue fucking babies in the womb. Even I have rules, Shigaraki!"

Tomura stared up at him, silence reigning in the warehouse. In the distance the other villains were watching, staring at the showdown between the two most powerful members of the fledgling League of Villains.

Then Tomura nodded.

"Fine." he said. "We'll let her live."

He turned to walk away, and Dabi blinked.

"What?" he asked.

"We'll let her live." Tomura replied. "Let those idiot heroes handle her. She's shown she can't follow orders, but killing her is too easy. Children... children will keep Midoriya distracted. Hurt him. Make him weaker... and then I can CRUSH HIM."

Tomura's fists clenched. Then they slowly unclenched, loosening.

"Besides..." he said, voice low. "We need to keep some principles. We're better than heroes. We won't hurt children."

Dabi was left alone as Tomura stalked away, wondering what the hell was going to happen now.

Pain. He decided. There would be pain, for sure.


	8. In Which Aizawa Makes a Mistake

In hindsight, Aizawa noted, perhaps pairing Midoriya with Ashido for a no-Quirks combat training scenario was a bad plan.

It had all seemed fine at first. Midoriya was strong and smart, Ashido was fast and agile. Two opposing skill sets that offered unique interplay that would force the combatants to combat their mirror opposite. A solid idea, and one both seemed to appreciate, though he doubted either really grasped the full scale of his laundry list of reasons as to why he was pitting the two against each other.

It had gone well at first too, even after he had declared they could begin. Midoriya had been surprisingly quick without the use of Full Cowling, while Ashido had surprisingly managed to contest most of his power moves with her own strength. She was definitely the most fit of the girls in Class 1A, maybe even in the first year were it not for 1B's Itsuka Kendo. But while she was strong because she was fit, Midoriya was strong because he had built himself to be strong. Ashido had never worked out for the purpose of building muscle. Midoriya did just that, every day, so his own Quirk wouldn't destroy his body.

So eventually, it came down to grappling. Aizawa saw the way Midoriya hesitated in action, his hands stalling and giving enough time for Ashido to push him down. She was nimble enough to straddle him, and agile enough to stay on even when he bucked. And when she leaned in, perhaps to gloat gauging by the grin on her face, it was that agility that stopped Midoriya from taking her head off with a right hook that crackled with verdant lightning.

He screamed, fear evident in his voice, and Aizawa remembered everything just a little too late as Midoriya's fist caught the edge of Ashido's jaw, knocking her off him and off the concrete platform they were fighting on. She cried out in pain when she hit the ground below, other groups pausing in their own matches in time to see Midoriya with his eyes wide and body sheathed in that green electric shroud. Full Cowling. It lasted only a moment before Aizawa used his own Quirk to nullify it, leaving Midoriya standing with chest heaving and eyes wide, fists clenched.

The boy shuddered, staring down at Ashido's crumpled form as she slowly began to pick herself back up. Then something clicked, something Aizawa could practically see, and he hit the ground on his knees. He was breathing heavily, a machine-gun rattle of words escaping him as he shook his head, all spoken under his breath. Aizawa heard such tidbits as 'not again' and 'no more please' and 'I don't want it'. The boy's hands came up, wrapping around his head with fingers digging into his scalp and eyes slammed shut. Aizawa cursed his inability to foresee the future like the famed Sir Nighteye, before walking up to Midoriya and putting a hand on his shoulder.

"Midoriya," he said, with a voice that was gruff without being unkind. "You're safe. Nobody is going to hurt you, not here."

Midoriya didn't respond. His rattled, fear-driven pleading and begging faded somewhat, the pitiful requests for mercy and freedom and 'no more' fading away as he slowly calmed down. His eyes flickered back open, viridescent and glowing just a little from within. His hands trembled as he brought them down, before his head rose and saw Ashido standing near.

"Sorry..." he whispered, in the feeble voice of the truly repentant and regretful. "I'm so sorry... I didn't want to... I... I thought... y-you..."

His fists clenched, impacting the ground together as he took out a measure of his anger on the concrete below. He was clearly frustrated with himself and what he perceived as a failure, and as Aizawa drew closer he noticed the tears slowly tracing paths down the boy's face. His fists came up and then down, but before they could hit the ground they were halted dead in their tracks. Aizawa breathed a sigh of relief as he retracted his capture-weapon.

"Midoriya." he said, beckoning the boy toward him. "Come with me."

He took a long look at the rest of Class 1-A, who were all stopped and staring; except for Bakugou and Todoroki, the latter of whom had the former locked in an armbar while the former had a leg around the latter's neck… somehow. Both were only now stopping as they realized what was happening around them.

"Get back to work." Aizawa ordered, wrapping his capture weapon back around himself with a hand while waving the other in their direction. "Switch partners in five minutes. If I'm not back by then, keep doing that until bell and then head to your last class. Got it?"

Everybody nodded in unison, an unnerving sight, before Aizawa lead Midoriya away. The boy seemed nervous, verdant hair falling over his eyes as he bowed his head, his hands tangled in front of him and his gait quick and frantic.

"W-where are we g-going, Sensei?" he asked, voice low. "I-I… I'm sorry about what happened, it won't happen again I promise!"

"We're taking a walk." Aizawa replied, rubbing his eyes with the back of his forearm. "You need a few minutes to calm down and I need a few minutes away from your peers. We're going to go get something to drink and you're going to talk to me."

"W-what about?" Midoriya was staring at him.

Aizawa wondered for a moment the exact same thing, before nodding.

"Your History of Heroics report on influential early heroes in Europe." he decided. "Give me the basics."

Izuku swallowed, and then smiled… and then he spoke.

And he took Aizawa on an adventure.

The particular figure he followed was nobody particularly new to Aizawa; anybody with a cursory knowledge of European Heroics knew who Dogma was. The foremost hero of the First Age of Heroes so far as everybody west of Russia, east of America and north of Africa was concerned. There was little contest there; it was the Britain-born Dogma who brought down Unity, tyrant ruler of mainland Europe, and freed France, Germany, Poland and the like alongside such heroes as Charlemagne, Eisen, Hussar and even the mysterious Sabbat, so easily forgotten.

But Midoriya largely brushed over those vast accomplishments, focusing on the minutia. Dogma's Quirk was an affair of legend; some had named it the most powerful Quirk in history. Signed and Sealed was simple; Dogma looked at something and 'marked' it with a gesture, often a clenched fist or a snap of the fingers. Six seconds later; that thing, be it man or matter, was destroyed. Laid to waste, some would say; Unity, whose power was total control over flesh and blood and bone, was reduced to a fine red mist by the snap of a finger and a few seconds patience. Stormfronter, who could lay cities to ruin with megastorms capable demolishing cities, was choked to death in an instantaneous vacuum.

Dogma, Midoriya had discovered through copious research and patched together theories derived from interviews as old as they were rare, had hated his Quirk. The power to condemn anything to obliteration was a curse insofar as the hero was concerned. His power was monstrous, unholy, a defiance of natural order that made him a monster by extension. The greatest hero of an age, some called him, thought himself little more than a tyrant himself.

Dogma had disappeared after the fall of the Helsinki Villain Alliance, alongside Sabbat. Most supposed they had simply gone into hiding to live quietly. But Midoriya had a separate theory, one that he had to pull out his phone to display. He first showed Aizawa a picture; blurry, poorly rendered, clearly taken on an old phone, of a Japanese woman whose eyes were glowing red. Her garb was bizarrely familiar, the ragged white papal mantle that was the signature of Sabbat. Then, he pulled out something even Aizawa, who was something of an expert in information retrieval, had never seen before; one of the rare few videos of Dogma actually using his Quirk.

The man didn't look all that special; standing beside Hussar clad all in shining steel and Charlemagne, whose kingly garb was resplendent, his ragged and filthy brown cloak and his plain black outfit was about as remarkable as Aizawa's own. His hood had fallen, revealing long tangled locks of black hair.

Then… his eyes flashed an unmistakable red, and his hand clenched into a fist before him. The camera shook a moment before twisting violently to show a villain, likely some member of the HVA, who had only a few seconds to look stunned before he simply disappeared, warping into nonexistence.

Aizawa blinked.

"Sabbat was Japanese." Midoriya explained, smiling softly. "Nobody ever knew Dogma's real name; the British Civil War destroyed most public records. But… I found something else."

Aizawa stared as the boy brought up a series of high-definition pictures taken of some old book. Then he closed that and showed him a side-by-side, comparing two images; one of a woman's picture in a family scrapbook of some sort, and the other of that same low-quality image of Sabbat.

"There was a theory a little while back, about Sabbat's true identity." Aizawa stared at the uncanny resemblance shared by the two images. "A hero fan on one of the forums posted this and said it was in an old family scrapbook, from during the time Quirks were getting more and more common."

Izuku brought up the pictures of the books again. He and Aizawa were standing in the school hallway, the latter by now quite intrigued. If Midoriya had actually cracked the case as to the ultimate fate of Dogma…

"Then I hit the jackpot." he said, before explaining. "Unity was a dedicated anti-theist; she thought religion was a disease and hated everything to do with churches and the like. So priests in Europe recorded their important documents in photo form and shared them online so that even if they were destroyed they would still exist. Documents like tithing records, baptismal records and… marriage records."

The books showed whole hosts of names, most of them clearly French, but two in particular stood out.

"I took a gamble and looked through lots of them, using the name that hero fan who found the Sabbat-image provided… and I found it." Izuku grinned. "A marriage between a James Welles…"

Aizawa stared long and hard at the name in utter disbelief.

"And Shotaka Aizawa." Izuku finished. "And I checked familial databases; she's your great-great-great grandmother on your father's side."

Aizawa's expression betrayed genuine shock for a good ten seconds. But Izuku clearly wasn't done yet.

"I did a side-by-side of your face and Dogma's and ran it through a comparison system." he added. "The match was seventy-one percent, but given that you're Japanese and he's British that's a pretty big number. Your hair is almost identical. And your Quirks are both sight-based with distinct red flashes. And Sabbat's Quirk-"

"Let her remove people's Quirks for a day when she touched them." Aizawa concluded. "You… you figured all of that out?"

"Yeah!" Izuku grinned. "It was a great way to… take my mind off of… y'know… things…"

Aizawa took a long look at his student, before sighing.

"Take all the stuff about me apparently being Dogma's great-great-great grandson out of it and you're guaranteed an A," he said. "If anybody finds out about that…"

Aizawa took a deep breath.

"There's a lot of people out there who hate Dogma with a fiery passion," he explained. "If any of them find out I'm related… I'll be in big trouble."

He took a moment, and then shivered.

"And whatever you do, don't let Nezu know."

"O-oh… N-Nezu already… knows." Izuku admitted, and Aizawa froze. "He… he helped me search through all the marriage records, since there was way too much for me to do it alone."

Aizawa could feel a headache coming on.

"B-but I promise I won't… y'know, t-tell anyone else!" Izuku shook his head. "I… I know what it's like to… to keep a secret. I'll leave it out of the report, and I won't tell anybody, I promise!"

Aizawa looked at his biggest problem child for a long moment. He still had some discoloured skin on his cheek, several new scars that wouldn't be going anywhere. His bright green eyes still showed pain; he as a long way from healed after his ordeal at the hands of Toga. But… that resolve that shone when he defied Aizawa's order to retreat during the summer camp incident, that resolve that marked the boy's unshakeable strength of will… that resolve was burning like emerald fire.

Aizawa rubbed the boy's hair with a rare, fond smile.

"You're a good guy, Izuku." he said, using the boy's given name for the first time. "Thank you."

Izuku just beamed, sunlight in a smile, and Aizawa turned away and continued toward the staff lounge. Then he noticed something curious, a feeling he hadn't felt in ages.

He didn't feel tired at all.


	9. In Which The Todorokis Help

"Are you feeling better?"

The question was sudden, leaving Izuku blinking and surprised as a hand touched to his shoulder. A hand belonging to one Todoroki Shoto, who had his usual calm, measured expression even as he did something Izuku wasn't aware he was even capable of. When had Todoroki begin touching people, he wondered? Had he missed this while in the hospital, some shift in character? Or was he just an exception to Todoroki's usual rule of maintaining distance due to his... circumstances?

Izuku wasn't sure. But he didn't mind the gesture; Todoroki's right hand was cool to the touch, and it felt soothing, like an ice pack on a fresh bruise. In spite of three weeks in the hospital, he still felt tender and sore all over; a beating like the one Toga had delivered wasn't something that just went away, and according to several nurses it was something of a small miracle that the blow to the head hadn't rendered him temporarily comatose... or worse.

"I..." Izuku was also unsure how to respond to the question. Was he feeling better? Yes, obviously... or perhaps no? His body felt repaired, functional, he didn't feel like a pile of bruises and battered flesh any more. But his mind...

He shivered gently, that cool touch feeling ice cold for a moment as he shrugged it off.

"Yes." he declared, for nobody could look up to a broken hero. "I feel much better."

He smiled, and Todoroki nodded. He was lucky it was Todoroki, whose experience with emotions was greatly lacking, rather than the more observant Uraraka or Tokoyami. The smile was false, but it looked just convincing enough to pass as genuinely happy. He patted Todoroki on the back and the two looked up at the hospital before them.

Todoroki Rei's room was on the seventh floor of the vast building, in the long-term care unit where those in need of treatment and those under constant observation stayed. In Miss Todoroki's case it was more 'lived' than 'stayed' considering she had been here for some ten years, but that was rather the sin of the father moreso than a fault of her own.

Izuku was carrying a small box of cookies at Sato's behest. Apparently everybody loves cookies, which he had gone so far as to frost entirely in white with little snowflakes done up in light blue. Izuku had helped make said cookies; he did such things often now. Despite the fact that he had visited Miss Todoroki twice before, once each Sunday for two weeks, and each time she had thanked him for the treat, he still felt trepidation. Perhaps this week was the week he had messed them up, perhaps this week was the week they weren't good enough.

Perhaps. Perhaps. Perhaps. So many little second thoughts and internal criticisms, hindrance after hindrance after self-imposed hindrance. Izuku was laden with them; his every move was dogged by his own unyielding pathos of self doubt and uncertainty. In the past it had been easy to ignore; he preferred to wing it and fly by the seat of his pants, come hell or high water and devil take to rest. But after his mother, after Toga...

He shivered again.

The door slid open with a quiet swishing and allowed the both of them inside. Todoroki went first, Izuku second carrying his little box of cookies. He stepped inside and swallowed. Miss Todoroki wasn't sitting in her bed this time; dressed in a fluffy white robe and blue shorts she had taken a seat on the armchair by the window, staring out at the city. Being on the top floor of the building, which itself was built on a hill, she had quite the view to look out upon.

She heard them enter and turned toward them, smiling. It was a frail smile, but it was far more real than any smile Izuku had shown for many weeks now. Todoroki stepped forward and, without a moment's hesitation, embraced his mother in his arms. Her eyes went wide, but she didn't hesitate in hugging him back. Izuku simply closed the door behind him, placed the cookies on the bedside table and stood somewhat awkwardly beside it, before they broke the embrace.

"You've gotten even bigger;" were Miss Todoroki's first words to her son, as she touched a hand to his chest. "And your friend too. They must feed you well at UA."

Shoto smiled. Not Todoroki. Izuku had learned the difference. Todoroki was quiet and severe, equal parts icy calm and fiery anger bottled up behind a thick barrier of apathy that could only be cracked by repeated blunt force trauma of the emotional kind. Shoto...

Shoto was a young man who had never been allowed to be a boy. He smiled at sun and wind and rain and sighed when he smelled flowers. He took pleasure in the smallest things; the feeling of a cool breeze, the warmth of the springtime sun, the way a candlelight flickered when you spoke to it. He was troubled by little, because little was troubling to someone who didn't know what was meant to trouble him. Loud shouting would agitate him, make him tense and irritable, and unexpected physical contact was a good way to get your hand either iced or burnt for free. But little else got his temper to change; he was free with his emotions, and most were positive.

That was the Shoto that spoke freely with his mother about all manner of things, the Shoto that deliberately segued the same conversational topics to Izuku just to give him a reason to speak, who chuckled in good-nature when Izuku stammered his way through a tangent on something, whose mother was possibly the second-sweetest woman Izuku had ever known after his own mother.

Izuku offered up quiet rejoinders and muttered responses, half-hearted and unsure, but Ms. Todoroki just smiled and listened regardless. She was almost too kind; she knew what had happened to him, even the sordid details both he and Shoto had tried to keep from her at first. She had been impossibly supportive and careful about the whole thing; but she didn't act like it hadn't happened.

The same couldn't be said for some of his classmates. Jiro was quiet, but she seemed to grow almost agitated when Izuku's trauma displayed itself. Kaminari was unfortunately as clueless as ever and frequently said things that made his skin crawl and jaw clench. And Mineta... the less said about Mineta, the better. The boy's dedication to his mission could almost be considered inspiring were it not such a crude mission to begin with. Things that would have made Izuku blush and stammer now made him shudder and filled his mind with memories he desperately wanted to forget.

But Shoto and Ms. Todoroki... they were none of these things. Shoto was quiet and polite, but he never hesitated to listen to Midoriya, and Ms. Todoroki... she understood. Not to the fullest extent; each of them had suffered, certainly, but hers was a drawn out, lingering torment where as his had been short, sharp and brutal. But both shared scars, both had been forced to do something they didn't want to do...

And both were far from healed. The only difference was that Todoroki Rei could afford taking the time to heal; Midoriya Izuku couldn't. He needed to keep going; a long and arduous healing process wasn't an option, he needed to get back on his feet as quick as possible.

So he played the whole person, pretending to be healed and without injury. But it was a thin veneer, lightly applied and prone to cracking under pressure or scrutiny. He couldn't hide his feelings forever. Shoto knew that better than anyone; he was a master of the emotional barrier. Thick layers of apathy surrounded him, one may recall. He knew guarded expressions when he saw them, and were Midoriya's expression any more guarded he would have assumed it to be a member of the Imperial family.

The visit went on for an hour or so, an hour of quiet discussion and casual conversation. It ended with tea and cookies, his mother insisting she'd never be able to eat all these cookies by her lonesome and demanding they help her with the process. They were delicious as usual; Midoriya was quite the talented dessert baker, apparently. Shoto never would have guessed. They were dry and crumbly, the icing stop them sticking wonderfully to every crum and melting in the mouth.

The two left side by side, Midoriya once again looking a little happier. And Shoto smiled a smile Midoriya didn't see, hidden partially behind a hand and partially behind a turned head. But he smiled, because he was helping his friend, and wasn't that worth a smile?

The smile faded when they returned to the dorms and found a letter addressed to Midoriya sitting on the floor in front of his dormitory door. He picked it up and turned to Shoto and smiled a smile that was fake and forced, begging dismissal, and Shoto just patted his shoulder and nodded.

He would regret leaving Midoriya alone later.

Izuku opened the envelope at his desk in the corner of his dormitory, right next to the window. He tore open the top and pulled out the contents. Several sheets of paper filled with neat handwriting stared up at him, and he swallowed and began reading.


	10. In Which Stain Tells The Truth

_Midoriya,_

_I hope this letter finds you well. I know you have been hard pressed for wellness in the passing months; I understand you suffered something of a personal tragedy. I have no condolences to offer, for platitudes of that sort are beneath men of action such as ourselves. Instead I offer this promise instead; the one who did this to you WILL suffer. _

_I have few doubts this letter will be edited after it is written, with judicious application of the infamous black ink. I'm almost flattered that even a letter I send out could be considered dangerous; apparently my words are quite influential in the world outside. It intrigues me that this should be; I was not trying to create a movement. I was simply trying to provoke change. I never intended to start a cult of personality, but I am told now that red fabric sells quite well. Perhaps I should begin demanding royalties?_

_In any regard, this is all just unimportant nonsense. I am not contacting you to bandy cheap words. I want to inform you that regardless of what happens in the coming days, weeks and months, that I will not permit this trespass. I know it was the League of Villains who were responsible for this, and I know which of them did the deed itself._

_Toga. A fan of mine I'm told, though what she did reflects little of what I believed. Civilians are often weak, stupid and hapless, but they are also often innocent and unworthy of death. Her murder of your mother is unacceptable, and I will inform her of that mo matter what it is that comes to pass. _

_A part of me wishes I could have met your mother, Midoriya. Given your attitude and heroism I have few doubts she was a wonderful woman to have raised a son so noble. Another part of me knows it is better I did not; she would have likely tried to stop me. I would have had to stop her. She would have lived, but you would have hated me even more._

_And on the topic of hatred; I hear the boy Ingenium is doing much better for himself and the world at large. That is good; if our encounter changed his mindset, then it means my method is working in at least one way. Native, I hear, has also become far more charitable and heroic in his endeavours. No more drunken affairs with [Censored], at least not public ones. _

_If I may make a request of you, let it be this; inform the boy Ingenium that his brother fought well. It was not my intention to maim him; Ingenium was one of the few good ones, if overly reliant on sidekicks and support teams. I wouldn't have gone after him if he had not come after me; but I had to protect myself. After all, had he taken me in, how could I have met you?_

_There is one more thing before I end this letter, Midoriya. Something about Toga, the monster who attacked you. Part of me wishes to stop right here, and the staff agree with it. Really though, I am informed I can't actually tell you. Evidently they wish to keep something from you, something important. Go seek the truth, Midoriya. Nobody should have something so important kept from them. And when you learn the truth? Never let it go. Take it, hold it tight, and deny the lies of the others who would rip it from you._

_Take the truth, Midoriya. Wrap it up in your faith in yourself so nobody can kill it. It is paramount you keep it safe. Never let it go. Seize it and preserve it._

_I'm told the first letter of... any correspondence is the most important. I can't say I agree entirely, but... what I wrote above… does apply._

_Be well, Midoriya. And know I am always in support of you._

_Signed, Hero-Killer Stain._

Izuku stared at the letter for a while. It had been a strange thing to receive, correspondence in a blank white envelope with only a couple of stamps in the top corner. It was addressed to him in rigid, plain handwriting, but the text inside was more flowing and elegant, evidently the work of Stain himself.

What had he been talking about? Izuku looked the letter over again. something about Toga? Something more than what he already knew, something that was somehow dangerous? Something he couldn't tell Izuku outright, but so important he wrote a whole paragraph about its importance and another, smaller paragraph about how important it was he find out?

Izuku read the whole thing over again. Stain was flowery in his writing, that much was certain. It was unsurprising given the man's flair for the dramatic as a whole, he supposed, but those last word choices didn't seem very natural at all. They seemed almost forced, like...

_I'm told the first letter of... any correspondence is the most important. I can't say I agree entirely, but... what I wrote above… does apply._

The breaks were bizarre, practically pointless. But why? Was it... Izuku swallowed. Was it a code of some kind? A deliberate message hidden in a potentially censored letter? A risk by Stain to be sure, but... Izuku looked it over again, and removed the words in the breaks.

I'm told the first letter of... what I wrote above...

The first letter. Wrote above.

Izuku went over the whole letter and looked at the first word of each sentence. At first, nothing. Garbled nonsense. But then... the paragraph about not being able to tell him the truth, the thing he had learned about Toga. And the paragraph about the truth.

Part.

Really.

Evidently.

Go.

Nobody.

And.

Never.

Take.

The first letter of each.

P.

R.

E.

G.

N.

A.

N.

T.

Izuku's eyes shot open, wider than before. The second paragraph as well.

Take.

Wrap.

It.

Never.

Seize.

The... the first letter.

T.

W.

I.

N.

S.

Izuku dropped the letter. No. No it couldn't be true. It couldn't. No. He shook his head and cursed internally because it very well could be true. Stain was many things. A murderer. A madman. A symbol. But he was not a liar. He had no reason to lie. He was, for want of a better word, Izuku's first fan. He wouldn't lie. He probably couldn't. But...

It couldn't be true. Had someone lied to Stain? Misled him?

But at the same time...

Nobody ever answered questions about Toga. Nobody ever told him where she was or what she was doing or if she was alright. No matter who he asked he was always shrugged off with a 'I'm not sure, but [blank] probably does'. And when [blank] didn't know or wasn't sure, it was another [blank] who did. It was like walking in circles. Why wouldn't they give him a straight answer? Why wouldn't they tell him? Why wouldn't they just let him know so he could sleep a little easier knowing she wasn't suffering?

Izuku wasn't stupid. He knew she had done wrong. She had killed his mother. But he also knew she was a broken thing that had been lied to and misled by Shigaraki and his master for months before their encounter at his home. He... he couldn't blame her. He couldn't hate her no matter what it was she did.

**A real hero would have been able to stop her, after all.**

But if she was... pregnant, with-with twins... he should have known! That was as much his responsibility as it was hers! They were... they were his children too, right? Someone would have told him, All-Might or Aizawa-sensei or Nezu or somebody... right? He deserved to know, he needed to know, he... he would have been told. He could trust them that much, they… they wouldn't hold this from him.

They would have told him.

Right?


	11. In Which Things Get Worse Again

Aizawa Shouta knew he was in for a bad day the moment he stepped into the staff lounge just to find it was already quite occupied. Nemuri, Hizashi, Roku, Sekijiro and others occupied the couches, with Nezu standing atop the central table surrounded by his faculty. It was way too early in the morning for any of them to here; even Hizashi wasn't due to start his morning show for another hour. It was five in the goddamn morning.

"Why are you in my secret lair?" he asked without thinking, only for his sleep deprived brain to clue in on the fact that everybody looked quite serious about three seconds later. "Wait... what's going on?"

Everybody swallowed, and then the red to Hizashi who just gulped. Shouta's oldest friend looked at him, met his eye, and then spoke the two words he didn't want to hear.

"Midoriya knows." Present Mic declared, nodding once.

Aizawa sat down where he stood with a thud of his butt meeting the carpet, and lowered his head. He stared down at the floor for a long minute, and then began slowly nodding.

"He wants to meet Toga." he said. "Right? And talk to her. And he's going to want to keep the kid."

"Kids." Nezu interjected. "Miss Toga is pregnant with twins."

Aizawa groaned.

"One of my students is going to be a father of twins in his first year of high school." Aizawa said. "Because he was sexually assaulted by a villain. And he's going to keep the kids because he doesn't have any other family and he's functionally incapable of protecting his own interests in favour of helping others."

"Most likely." Nezu agreed.

Aizawa groaned again.

"And we have... what, six months to deal with this?" he asked.

"Three." Nezu replied. "At the most. Miss Toga's pregnancy is developing rapidly; it is very likely the children will be matured and born much sooner than the average human child. I'm told it's quite fascinating."

"How in the..." Aizawa stopped himself. "You know what? Never mind. Nezu... how did he find out?"

Nezu smiled, an expression that did not belong on a mouse-bear-opossum-thing, and looked around the room.

"Midoriya received a letter from Tartarus." he squeaked in explanation. "A letter from one Chizome Agakuro."

Aizawa groaned even louder than before.

"And let me guess..." he said. "Stain hid a message somewhere in his letter to tell Midoriya what was going on, because some other criminal told him, and nobody noticed until Midoriya put it together because the kid's smart enough to do that and Stain knows it."

"Exactly." Nezu declared. "You're quite observant, Aizawa. Now... we were discussing how best to handle this."

"The kid's got a martyr complex the size of Endeavour's ego; he'll take the kids himself, and he won't listen if we tell him not to." Aizawa declared.

"Ain't it illegal for him to take kids while he's underage?" Snipe replied, cocking his head to one side.

"He's of legal age in Japan is the problem." Aizawa reminded his coworker with a shake of the head. "If he wants to take his kids, he's got full rights to do so as long as he can provide for them."

He took a moment to look around the room again, noting a rather crucial absence.

"Where's All-Might?" he asked. "This is important for him too."

"All-Might's making sure Izuku doesn't do anything brash." Sekijiro replied, shaking his head. "The boy was on the brink of panic last night, he stormed into Nezu's office and showed him the letter. Demanded to know why he didn't know."

"And then his guilty complex kicked in and he freaked out." Aizawa guessed, Sekijiro nodding once. "Dammit. Where's that therapist he was supposed to be meeting with anyways?"

"Miss Nyanja has been delayed rather severely by the recent spikes in villain activity in and around Africa." Nezu replied, shaking his head. "She will be with us in a week or so, if all goes according to plan, and two weeks if we must use the contingency."

Aizawa sighed and lowered his head.

"Then all we can do is wait and hope things don't get any worse." he said.

The lot of them split up, going to ready their lessons for the day and prepare for their classes. Aizawa took the chance to catch an hour or so of sleep. Or... he tried.

Because less than an hour later, things got worse.

"She's gone."

Hizashi's voice was clearly panicked, and Aizawa looked at him with dull eyes. The usually pompous, exaggerated man had removed his iconic sunglasses, revealing his eyes brimming with panic to Aizawa's watchful gaze. He didn't need to clarify; Aizawa knew who he was talking about.

"Any leads?" the Erasure hero asked, unzipping his sleeping bag and rolling off his desk.

"Security cameras saw her door disintegrate, and the precinct is... on fire." Hizashi replied. "Blue fire."

Aizawa swore.

"Does Nezu have a plan?" he asked.

"Maybe, but I have something better than a plan," came a rasping voice from the communicator on his collar, tinny and subdued but clearly amused. "I have Toga Himiko right here, unconscious."

Aizawa pauses, grabbing his communicator and staring at it for a moment. He knew that voice, but it was impossible. These communicators were supposed to be on a secure channel. And yet...

"Shigaraki," he began, before pausing. "You... how?"

"Firefly sends his regards, Eraserhead." said the manic leader of the League of Villains. "And Darkstar sends... ew, no, I'm not telling him that. Tell him yourself, weirdo."

"What's going on?" Hizashi asked, stepping toward him, but Aizawa held up a hand to halt his advance.

"Shigaraki, what the hell do you want?" he asked.

"I want to punish this little brat for disobeying my direct orders," Aizawa managed not to scoff at Shigaraki Tomura calling somebody else a brat. "And I want to tear this rotten society you heroes built to the ground. It's not that complicated, Eraserhead..."

"Then why the hell are you contacting me?" He began signing to Hizashi as he spoke, telling his fellow hero to get Nezu to trace the signal. "What do you want from me?"

"You're convenient." Shigaraki replied. "You're close to Midoriya, being his homeroom teacher and all. Apparently this little shit's going to pop those kids out in a few months, and when she does I want him to have his brats. Then I can kill her in front of him and watch him break."

Aizawa nearly crushed the communicator in his palm, but he bit back his anger long enough to bring it closer to his mouth instead.

"Shigaraki." he said. "You're insane. I'm not bringing Midoriya to you."

"Of course you're not." Shigaraki replied. "At least, not unless the alternative is for him to go himself. Which he will, considering he's on speakerphone with us right now, listening to this."

Aizawa's eyes shot open, and he turned to Hizashi and began frantically signing for him to get to Midoriya, to stop him from-

"She's due in July according to the hospital records." Shigaraki said. "Be there... or don't. Turning a couple of my enemy's kids into supervillains would be pretty diabolical, wouldn't it? I wouldn't even need to do a recruitment quest or anything. Yeah... I think I'll do that. Anyhow, July. Remember that month... we'll tell you when she goes into labor. Kurogiri will bring you to us and everything. You just have to be there..."

"Shigaraki-" Aizawa began, before a beep informed him the signal had been cut. He swore again, dropping the communicator into his pocket. It was compromised, clearly, but perhaps Nezu could use to trace the signal.

"Hizashi, go find Midoriya." he ordered. "I'm going to Nezu. We need to stay on top of this."

Across the campus, Izuku Midoriya was staring in horror at his phone, even as Shigaraki continued speaking.

"And then I'll disintegrate her eyelids, but not her eyes." the demented villain explained slowly and carefully. "That way she can't blink or close her eyes, and the mirror stays useful the whole time. Then the rest of her fingers, and then then her toes one by one. Then maybe I'll... ugh. You're boring, Kurogiri. Fine..."

The man groaned.

"Talk to you later, Midoriya." he said, before the disconnect sound informed Izuku that the call was over.

The phone slipped free of Izuku's hands, falling to the tiled floor. His eyes brimmed with tears, before his expression shifted. He started sad, afraid... then his fists clenched, and his jaw set in a stoic line.

"Yes." he said. "Yes... you will. Because... I'm going to bring you down, Shigaraki."

He swallowed.

"You and all your monsters."


	12. In Which Jiro Snaps

"I had hoped I wouldn't find you up here."

Izuku, startled by the sudden voice behind him, twisted in place, turning to look at his new company. The voice was familiar, as was the face; even though only half of it was ever visible, Mezo Shoji's sharp countenance was hard to mistake. Perhaps even more so because of the omnipresent grey mask. He hadn't spoken with a tentacle mouth; the mask itself was moving as he continued, gently shuffling up and down as he approached.

"I..." Shoji hesitated for a moment, before nodding. "I heard everything."

Izuku's blood ran cold; this was the worse possible scenario. Somebody knew. The class already knew about what had happened, his assault at the hands of Toga, the situation he was in, but... this was even worse. Shoji knew about the children, about Shigaraki and Toga and the rest of it. He knew about the threat, about the pregnancy, about the fact that Izuku was a father and he needed to go and save her, save his children...

"So did I."

The second voice made Izuku freeze, glancing over his shoulder after a long moment to see the skinny form of Kyoka Jiro standing there with one of her dangling earphone jacks looked around her finger, her weight on one leg as she leaned against the doorframe. She looked almost apathetic, but Izuku could see that there was something more in her eyes, something a little darker.

Shoji and Jiro stood there, watching him, and he realized the compromising nature of his position. Sat on the edge of the roof of the dorm building, legs dangling over a ten story drop to solid concrete... it wasn't the best look. He clambered up off the concrete ledge, back onto the roof proper, hands raised.

"N-no, it's okay I-I wasn't going to..." He shook his head frantically. "I-I just needed to think, a-and I... I haven't that about that in-in a long time, it's okay I-I wasn't going to-"

"Midoriya, calm the hell down." Jiro said, raising a hand and beckoning him forward. "Just... calm down, okay? You're freaking everybody out."

Izuku swallowed and took a few more steps forward, noting the way Shoji loosened up and relaxed when he was more than ten feet from the edge and within fifteen feet of them. He looked at Jiro, then Shoji.

"So..." he began. "W-what... what do you n-need?"

Jiro sighed, looking at Shoji, and Shoji simply shook his head.

"I told you." she said pointedly. "He's not going to ask for help. He's Deku, Shoji, he doesn't know how."

"W-what...?" Izuku looked between them again. "What are you...?"

Shoji took a few steps forward and placed a gentle hand on Izuku's shoulder, the vast appendage engulfing part of his upper arm as well.

"Midoriya," he said, voice low and calm. "We don't need anything. We want to know if you need anything. And please do not tell us you're fine, because we are both well aware you are not."

Izuku wanted to protest, but unfortunately he couldn't quite muster up the necessary energy. He was drained; first from the news of Toga's pregnancy, then the fiasco with Shigaraki... this was just the next in a line of things that had been kicking him in the head for the last twenty-four hours. He was tired of getting kicked. He wanted to collapse and just... stop, for a while, but he knew that wasn't an option. Toga was in danger. His children were in danger. He had to protect them, all of them. That... that was what a hero was meant to do. Right?

Or was it folly? Toga had... Toga had assaulted him. Murdered his mother in cold blood. She had hurt him so, so deeply, it still hurt a month later, more than it had before. She has ripped his life away and used him, abused him, made him suffer so much. Why couldn't he let her suffer some too, feel some of the pain she had caused him? It... it was only fair.

"No." He didn't even know he said it aloud. "No... it's... it's not fair. I can't..."

What kind of hero let somebody suffer? What sort of hero let somebody die because of personal feelings, especially in such a horrible way? Izuku... couldn't. He wouldn't. Maybe most people thought differently. Maybe most people were smarter than him. Maybe most people would take the chance for karmic justice.

But then it clicked.

Izuku wasn't most people, now was he?

"I'm going to save her." he said, looking at the two with narrowed eyes. "I'm not going to let Shigaraki hurt her. She... she needs a hero. And I'm going to be a hero."

Jiro stared. Shoji stared.

"You're nuts, you know that?" Jiro asked him, her usual deadpan slipping as she spoke, falling into something much less neutral. "Midoriya, she fucking raped you. Remember? She tried to ruin your life! And... and you're going to save her after all that?"

She sounded bitter. Angry. She was stalking towards him, and Shoji turned to face her but it wasn't Shoji's words and actions that angered her so Izuku stepped towards her as well.

"A hero shouldn't let people die." Izuku said. "Just because she-"

"SHE KILLED YOUR FUCKING MOTHER!" Jiro screamed.

And then she slapped him.

It was as clean a slap as any, her hand cracking across his cheek and turning his head to one side, her palm making that perfect 'smack' sound that filled the air with a sharp retort like a gunshot, before time seemed to speed up again after slowing and Izuku turned to face her again. Were those tears in her eyes? Why was there anger in her voice?

"Heroes should save people..." she breathed, quiet as a graveyard breeze. "But some people don't deserve saving."

Izuku stared at her for a long moment. This... this was definitely something from deep inside, to the point where he wasn't even sure she was consciously saying it. It seemed almost like she was in a trance, a hateful, embittered trance that saw her every breath turn to a gasp and her expression twist into a molten, fiery rage, violet eyes almost glowing with hate.

Izuku reached toward her. She slapped his hand away, and then went to slap him again. He caught her wrist and she snarled at him, trying to kick him. He deflected it with his shin and she wrenched herself away, slowly moving backwards. Izuku met her eyes.

"I can't believe that." Izuku replied, shaking his head slowly.

"Then you're a fucking idiot." Jiro spat, and she turned and ran from the roof, down the stairs and into the dorms.

Shoji touched a hand to his shoulder again, and Izuku began to falter. The conviction from before was gone. He'd only made things worse, again. Now one of his classmates... hated him? He wasn't sure. But she certainly didn't seem happy in the slightest about what he thought of Toga. And Jiro... Jiro had been cold about the whole affair from the start. She was the only one besides Mineta who never said anything to Izuku after he returned, simply acting like he had never gone. At first he had thought it was due to their distance; he had never made any real effort to get to know her. But now...

"She hates me." Izuku said. "She hates me and it's my fault."

"Midoriya," Shoji replied. "It is not your fault. None of this is your fault. And please don't argue with me because you know I'm telling the truth."

"But-" Izuku turned towards him, staring up into Shoji's cool grey eyes. "How could she not hate me? She just slapped me and told me I'm an idiot!"

"She's confused." Shoji replied, shaking his head. "I believe your situation has dredged up memories of something similar happening in her own life, and now she seeks to lash out at the source of those memories because she doesn't understand how else to cope. She's like Todoroki; she hides behind apathy, but once the mask slips she burns hotter than the surface of the sun."

Izuku stared.

"How... how do you know she...?" he asked.

"I... see and hear much more than I like to admit." Shoji answers, voice low. "It's habit; I'm always listening for new information. In elementary and middle school it was to avoid bullies and other trouble. Now... it's habit. I heard most of the argument between you and Bakugou that night, for example. And I also heard what All-Might said."

Izuku froze.

"You..." he stared up at Shoji, who nodded.

"Your secrets are safe with me." A tentacle mouth whispered into Izuku's ear, before the voice behind the mask continued. "As I said; I see and hear many things, Midoriya, and I understand that Jirou has told us little of her past. It is not my place to tell you her story, however. That would be incredibly rude and invasive. All I can say is that she doesn't hate you; she hates what you represent."

"W-what do I represent?" Izuku asked, and Shoji sighed, looking past him toward the door back into the dormitories.

"Strength she never had." he said. "And a chance she neglected to take until it was far too late."


	13. In Which Promises Are Discussed

Promise

"Midoriya's going to take the bait."

Aizawa Shouta said those words with something that was less like conviction and much, much more like a placid repetition of facts. It wasn't anything special to him, nothing urgent, because he knew full well it was the truth. It was a similar tone to the one used when describing the colour of the sky or the nature of things going up and mandatorily coming back down. It was deadpan and blunt and he knew Nezu was smiling behind his desk and stack of paperwork.

"Of course he is," the furry principal of UA replied, voice squeaking. "What's important is that we ensure he does so safely."

Aizawa groaned.

"Snipe's already volunteered for the rescue mission." he said, before looking over his shoulder at the door. "Vlad's in too, but only if you approve."

"Snipe didn't say the same?" Nezu asked, sounding amused.

"If Midoriya goes, Snipe follows." Aizawa replied, shaking his head. "They're attached now."

"Yes…" Nezu chuckled, a bizarre tittering sound like a bemused hamster, before he grabbed a pen. "I'll have to get in contact with the police and arrange a proper rescue team then. I trust you're volunteering?"

Aizawa sighed deeply.

"I don't have a choice." he replied, shaking his head. "I… I made a promise."

Nezu cocked his head to one side, and Aizawa looked away for a long moment, staring at the window behind him and out onto the campus proper. He could see the students trickling from their dorms, out into the fields and lawn, making their way towards the building proper. He sighed and looked back to the expectant Nezu.

"She died in my arms," he said, voice low and tired, so tired. "I was too late to do much more than watch her bleed out. She… she pleaded with me to protect him, coughing up blood the whole time. I… I promised I would, no matter what. I promised I would stop anything else from hurting him if it was within my power to do so. If there was even a chance I could help him, I would. She…"

His hands curled into fists. He didn't quite know why… it was highly irrational. He wasn't exactly going to get into a fight any time soon. And yet they adopted the shape anyways, fingers pressed to the palm, thumb curled beneath, loose and ready to clench before impact. His eyes flared red despite his efforts to restrain his Quirk, hair jolting upwards a little before falling back down around his head and shoulders.

"She thanked me." he said. "And then she died. And all I could do was watch."

He closed his eyes for a long moment then, before opening them to see Nezu standing atop the desk and staring at him. The principal offered Aizawa a tissue in an outstretched paw, which he took and used to dab at the corners of his eyes, fighting back the burning sensation there with the whole of his strength.

"So you will go?" Nezu asked, and even with eyes blurry with tears Aizawa could tell he knew the question was unnecessary. He nodded.

"I keep my promises." he said.

Friend

"Kacchan, I need your help."

Izuku wasn't wholly certain if this would work, but he had to try. Bakugou was alone with him, both standing outside Heights Alliance. The blonde had his arms crossed, omni-present scowl threatening Izuku with its severity while his red eyes glinted in the low light. Izuku had Shoji behind him, looming tall and powerful over his right shoulder despite his naturally quiet, graceful demeanour.

A general studies student had once compared Shoji to one of the monstrous Noumu that had been used by All for One to such brutal effectiveness in several of his major attacks and engagements. Shoji had said nothing. It had been Bakugou who had cuffed the general studies student around the back of the head and advised him to 'watch your fucking mouth before it gets your stupid ass into even deeper shit, you contrived fucking extra'.

Shoji and Bakugou had been something like acquaintances since that day. And it was likely that, combined with the seriousness and unwavering assuredness in Izuku's voice that led Bakugou to stand still and stare and listen.

"Something's happened." Izuku explained. "Toga's been taken by the League."

"Fucking shit." Bakugou spat, arms unfolding and hands clenching into clawed shapes almost immediately. "They sprung her from jail? Seriously?"

"No." Izuku shook his head. "They recaptured her, basically. She's their prisoner; she made Shigaraki really, really mad when she…"

He choked on the words in spite of himself, finding himself unable to say what he meant, what he was supposed to, what he knew. He swallowed, and shook his head in disappointment with himself. The vast hand of Shoji once again engulfing his upper arm was reassuring, and he leaned into that comfort a little to bolster his confidence.

"Anyways, she's in serious trouble with Shigaraki." Izuku concluded. "And… there's more."

"Don't see why her being in trouble's our problem." Bakugou said, shrugging. "Let those shitbags off each other, rapists and murderers deserve the mutual fucking company. Less work for us."

Izuku bit back a retort.

"She's…" He hesitated again, before looking down at the grass. "Toga's pregnant. Twins. M-my… my twins…"

Bakugou blew up. But softly, and with feeling. Two very small detonations shook the air around him, as he quivered with pent up… something. Slowly, his eyes tracked back up toward Izuku again, and he visibly forced himself to relax. He was baring his teeth, likely an unconscious reaction to the unwanted news.

"Fuck."

It was a short, blunt and candid response, but it was also very Bakugou of him to say. Izuku nodded, and behind him he could just about feel Shoji doing the same thing.

"Yes." their gigantic schoolmate agreed. "Fuck. Fuck indeed."

"What the fuck's the plan here?" Bakugou asked.

Izuku swallowed. He suspected that Bakugou wouldn't like this. He practically knew Bakugou wouldn't like this. But it had to be said, because it had to be done, because Izuku needed to say it and do it or he would never again sleep at night.

"I'm going to rescue her."

Bakugou stared. And stared.

And he stared a little more. His face was blank, his expression unreadable. Izuku wasn't sure what was going on behind those red eyes, until Bakugou finally shifted.

"You're a fucking idiot." he declared, before looking at Shoji. "And you're a fucking idiot for going along with this fucking idiot and his fucking idiot plan."

A small explosion went off in one palm, before Bakugou turned away, took exactly four steps, and then turned back around and took five to bring himself back closer to Izuku and Shoji.

"Where and fucking when?" he asked.

Izuku blinked.

"You…" He stared at Bakugou, who stared back. "You're going to come?"

"You're an unbearable fucking idiot." Bakugou replied. "You're way too fucking naive and forgiving and it's gonna bite you in the ass over and fucking over again until you fucking die and then I'm gonna have to bury your stupid ass and explain to aunty Inko that I fucked up and couldn't keep your unbearable idiot ass safe."

The words rattled off in a rather unique tangent, as Bakugou twisted to one side and started pacing.

"I can't just let you do something this fucking stupid without knowing you've got somebody backing your unbearable idiot ass up, or else I'm never gonna be able to sleep at night without feeling like a sack of dicks." he explained, surprisingly calm for a ranting Bakugou. "And I don't trust any of these fucking extras to back you up properly 'cept maybe Shitty Hair, but even he's not as good as I am."

He stopped and turned on a dime again, staring at Izuku. There was a pained vulnerability in his eyes, an openness the likes of which Izuku hadn't seen from his ex-best friend in ages. He opened his mouth to speak, then closed it, then opened it again.

"So I'm gonna back your unbearable idiot ass up myself to make sure you don't fuck this up." he declared. "And then… you're gonna give me aunty Inko's Fireball Curry recipe so I can show my old hag what real hot food tastes like."

Izuku stared for a moment, cocking his head to one side. That was… a lot to take in. A lot of a lot, actually. Had Bakugou just admitted to promising to protect him? That was… weird. Really weird. But not obscene or anything, just weird.

"I…" He wasn't sure what to say. "You…"

Bakugou rolled his eyes and thrust a hand towards Izuku, the offer obvious. Izuku just stared at the proffered appendage with wide eyes, before slowly reaching forward. His scarred hand wrapped around Bakugou's and the two shared a firm handshake. Izuku still wasn't one-hundred percent convinced this was happening, up until the point at which Bakugou grabbed him by the shoulder and pulled him closer, into… not quite a hug, more like a masculine power-grab that happened to faintly resemble a hug. Something Kirishima would come up with.

"I'm in, dipshit." Bakugou declared. "Where and fucking when?"


	14. In Which Midoriya Is A Hero

Screeching.

Screaming.

The crash of metal on metal.

The crack of broken glass.

Izuku lunged into action before he even had a moment to consider what action he was meant to take.

It was a simple accident; one car coming to a halt perhaps a little more abrupt than it should have, slipping on something in the road and lunging forward; right into another car's tail, leaving the other spinning out. The woman in front of him was stunned, staring at the oncoming car in total stillness. Green lightning erupted into being around him and his hand wrapped around her upper arm, before his legs kicked off and he pulled her backwards away from the potential disaster. His body twisted with the motion, she staggered some eight feet backwards and fell flat on her butt, while he lunged forward.

He wasn't sure what he was doing. He could see the driver of the impacted car in the seat, the children in the back. There was fear in each of their eyes, fear that made his own spine tingle and his blood roar in his ears. Some he lunged and he planted one hand firm on the car's bumper and the other on the hood and he caught it, body screaming as he pushed back against the momentum. It was a close thing; his foot dug into the concrete sidewalk, ripping it up in a short gouging scar before the car came to a halt of sorts, a shuddering, squeaking halt.

Izuku moved to the side of the car and tried one of the rear passenger doors. Not locked, broken. He grunted and heaved with One for All, ripping it free with the squeal of metal tearing, before reaching inside. The two children were crying, and gently he shushed them. Both were toddlers, sat in car seats, which he unbuckled with one hand each before carefully slipping each child free of the seat.

The woman in the front looked half-conscious, dazed, so Izuku removed the children and gently set them on the ground, beckoning the woman he had pulled away earlier forward. She had long dark hair and remarkably pale skin, perhaps a mutant-type Quirk? Izuku was curious, but duty outweighed curiosity as she came closer.

"Keep an eye on the children please, ma'am." he said, half a conmand and half a request. "I'm going to get the woman out of the car."

The woman nodded frantically, clearly still shocked, and Izuku gently patted her once on the shoulder. The two children were crying, and he smiled at them. It wasn't an All-Might smile; it was an Izuku Midoriya smile, a Deku smile, gentle and subtle, but it was a smile that made them both stop and stare for a moment.

"You don't have to be afraid." he said, shaking his head slowly. "I am here."

He turned and used One for All to lunge to the side of the car, grabbing the driver's-side door and pulling it open with a quick chop of the hand to break the locking mechanism. The woman inside was still dazed, obviously stunned, and Izuku grabbed a tiny pen-light from his pocket quickly.

"Ma'am, are you alright?" he asked, as she groaned quietly. "I need you to stay with me, ma'am. You may have a concussion. If you can hear me and understand me, please stay awake."

He glanced up at the car that incited the entire crash, just in time to see the driver stagger out into the street, bleeding from the head. Dammit. Other cars were slowed, but the flow of traffic hadn't totally stopped. The man was clearly dazed, swaying like a drunkard, and Izuku swallowed before pressing a hand to the woman's shoulder.

"I'll be back as quick as possible, ma'am." he declared, before jumping over the car and taking off in a sprint.

He slid to a halt in front of the man and winced when his ankle, already sore from ripping up four feet of sidewalk, turned against the ground a little funny. He pressed one hand to the man's chest and wrapped another around his waist, pulling him away from the intersection and back towards his car.

"Sir, can you hear me?" he asked, to which the man nodded. "Sir, it's all okay now, but it appears you've suffered a head injury. Your car was badly damaged in the crash and I'm not sure it's safe, so I'm going to get you to stay on the sidewalk. Can you get there yourself?"

The man groaned, but he nodded again.

"The... the bear..." he groaned, blinking slowly as he turned his eyes toward his car. "His bear..."

Izuku swallowed, before releasing the man. He used one hand to signal the cars on his left to stay stopped as he guided the man toward the sidewalk, noting the uncomfortable amount of oil spilling from the wrecked car onto the road. He turned and took off back toward the first car, sprinting wreathed in green lightning before coming to a halt and carefully unbuckling the woman's seat belt. She fell back against her seat with a gentle push, eyes still open and hands scrabbling at his own.

She grabbed his wrists, slowly looking down at him.

"Shinobu..." she groaned. "Hinoka..."

"The children are safe, ma'am." Izuku nodded. "And you're going to be okay too."

He brushed her hands off gently and grabbed his pen-light again, carefully shining it into each of her eyes. She was lucid, clearly, pupils dilating at the touch of the light, and he swallowed. Good. She wasn't going to die on him, at least not immediately.

"Ma'am, I'm worried that removing you from the car may worsen your injury." Izuku told her, grabbing her shoulder gently to draw her attention. "I'm going to leave you here, but don't worry, medical professionals will arrive shortly."

So long as somebody called the authorities already. He couldn't hear any sirens yet, but this was Musutafu; it was a big district, it might take emergency services a little while to reach the crash site, especially in this traffic. Izuku stood up straight and found that the man from the second car had made his way to the sidewalk, leaning against the wall. The two toddlers seemed calmer now, the pale woman talking to them with a small smile on her face.

He pressed a hand to his forehead and swallowed back his nervousness. What came next? Calling emergency services himself? Or should he make sure the accident didn't escalate? Did he need to move the other crashed car? He... he could, he'd moved plenty of car wrecks in his later days on Dagoba beach...

Then the crashed car caught fire with a sudden burst of light and heat and Izuku's eyes went wide.

He grabbed his phone and made a quick call; he'd recorded the number of every single hero agency in Musutafu just in case, and in this case he knew just who to call.

"Backdraft Hero agency, this is Hana speaking." the voice said after picking up. "What is your emergency?"

"This is Izuku Midoriya." he said. "Hero name Deku. I have an accident at the intersection of 33rd and Mundi... it-it's bad, there's a fire. I've gotten the victims clear and I'm going to clear the surrounding area, but firefighters are probably caught in traffic."

"One moment please..." the phone clicked and then he heard the woman speaking to someone else for a few seconds. "Okay, Deku, Backdraft is on his way. ETA three minutes."

"Thank you." Izuku said, nodding. "I'm going to secure the area."

He took off again after hanging up, pocketing his phone as he brought a full stop to all traffic by jumping into the middle of the intersection with both hands raised.

"Everybody please turn off your cars and remain calm!" he shouted. "There's been an accident, but other Heroes are on their way!"

A few cars turned off, but then Izuku remembered he was in street clothes; a dark green t-shirt with the kanji for 'business casual' on the front in white and a pair of grey sweatpants. He didn't exactly look like a Hero. That was an issue, should he have brought his costume? Should a Hero carry their costume everywhere? How would he manage that; a backpack? A briefcase?

He shook his head a little. This was no time for muttering; he had business to take care of, people to save!

The sound of sirens in the distance drew his attention for a moment, before he began waving cars away from the crash. The police and fire fighters would likely get caught up in the traffic, a quick estimate in his head gave them a solid ten minute delay at best, which was far from ideal. The sky was already beginning to fill with smoke from the burning car at his back.

Izuku lunged into action again, pulling open car doors and urging people to get clear, even pushing cars away from the burning wreck itself with Full Cowling. He was careful to lift with his legs, of course. Then the sound of a child crying brought his attention to the backseat of the burning car, and his eyes went wide.

A baby seat. And inside...

His fist was through the glass before he could even consider the action, his hands tearing the straps from the child and his arms holding it close to his chest. He stepped back, away from the flame, and carried the child away. Idly he noted the blood on his hand where the glass shards had cut him, but he shrugged that little detail off as he brought the child to the side of the road, shushing it with a gentle sound and holding it closer, embracing it tightly. It was so tiny, pale and pink and squirming in his arms...

_Pregnant._

_Twins._

_Midoriya is the father._

Izuku shuddered. No time for that. Heroism first. Heroism always came first. His personal life could wait.

Backdraft arrived a few minutes later, hosing down the flaming wreck with his hoses while his sidekicks helped Izuku collect the remaining civilians and establish a measure of order to proceedings. The fire died in minutes, a tow truck coming for the wreck less than half an hour later.

"Heck of a way to start a Saturday, huh kid?" one of the sidekicks, a short and somewhat round girl(?) wrapped up in a thick firefighter's coat, helmet and mask that hid any and all hints of her(?) identity from him, proclaimed as she stood beside him.

Izuku nodded.

"Welp, good work today." the girl(?) offered him a gloved hand to shake, and he took it. "I'm Hazy Flame, by the way. The big guy over there is Laval, and the one with the dogs is Flamvell. Nice to meetcha!"

The two men the woman(?) was referring to did indeed fit her rather apt descriptions of them. Flamvell was smiling with strangely pointy teeth and looking quite a bit like Hanta Sero while he let the two toddlers (Shinobu and Hinoka, his mind supplied) from earlier pet and hug his pair of black rescue dogs, their tears soaked up by the sleek black fur. Laval was pulling cars back into orderly rows after the swerving and collisions from earlier, his skin seemingly made of a deep grey stone-like substance that left Izuku staring for a moment before he took Hazy Flame's hand with a weak smile.

"Thank you for... all the help." he said, nodding. "I-I'm sorry I had to call, there was just too much to-"

"No problem, buddy!" Hazy Flame cut him off with a clap of her(?) free hand on his upper arm, likely because she(?) couldn't reach his shoulder. "That's what heroes do, right? We back each other up!"

Izuku nodded again. He could agree with that, easy.

"Besides, between you and me, been a slow week." Hazy Flame whispered, leaning in conspiratorially and holding a hand up to her(?) face as if shielding her(?) mouth. "If we didn't get a call within a couple of hours, I think the boss might have gone stir crazy."

Izuku chuckled despite himself, eyes tracking the rather amusing sight of one of many citizens trying to get a signature from Backdraft, whose support gear removed his ability to use his hands. Izuku himself had been approached for signatures and even a couple of pictures; his spontaneous heroism had proven quite popular. Combine that with the fame that followed his name after the Sports Festival... well, he was apparently quite the rising star, according to some online forums he happened to occasionally (frequently) browse.

Hazy Flame continued to talk for a little while. Izuku continued to sort of listen while watching the police finish collecting statements from the various civilians and Backdraft finish struggling with his numerous fans. After a few minutes, the short girl(?) bid him farewell with another jovial handshake, taking off in a strange waddle-jog towards the rest of her team, calling for them to wait up as they began exiting the scene.

Izuku noticed his phone buzzing in his pocket as he too walked away, and pulled it out. A wall of unread texts filled the screen; congratulations from a few classmates who had seen the event on TV or online, a text from his mother asking if he was alright.

All that, and a missed call from an unknown number.

Curious, and perhaps a little worried, he hit the 'call back' button and raised the phone to his ear, continuing down the street. It rung only once, before he heard the quiet beep of somebody answering.

"_Good afternoon!"_ a rather chipper woman's voice answered. "_This is Doctor Yasuho Nyanja; to whom am I speaking?"_

Izuku blinked, taking a look around quickly before answering.

"Um... this is Izuku Midoriya..." he said, voice quietly. "I'm, um, calling back after missing your call earlier."

"_Oh, young mister Midoriya!"_ the woman said, her smile practically audible. "_Oh, how delightful! Nezu told me all about you. I trust he told you about me?"_

Izuku scrambled for an answer for a moment, until it came to him. Yasuho Nyanja... of course, this was the therapist Nezu had contacted! He had been told about her a few times, mostly just updates on her progress making it back to Japan from... Africa, he believed.

"Yes... you're my... erm, therapist..." He crossed the road as he spoke. "I... wasn't aware you'd made it to Japan."

"_Oh, me and my boyfriend just left the _

_airport!"_ she replied. "_Nezu told me about your situation, though, so I was hoping to meet with you as soon as possible. How does Monday after school sound?"_

"Monday?" Izuku considered it. "Um... how long would a... session take?"

"_Think of it as a conversation, Izuku."_ Yasuho said. "_Oh, can I call you Izuku? You can call me Yasuho if you want."_

Izuku heard somebody speak, evidently near her, and she giggled.

"'_And Josuke says you can call him Josuke,"_ she added. "_That's my boyfriend, by the way. He says he looks forward to meeting you."_

Izuku nodded, then realized they couldn't see him nod as they were on the phone and shook his head at himself.

"You can, um, call me Izuku." he said. "And what did you mean by 'think of it as a conversation'?"

Yasuho laughed. It was a nice sound, a cute giggle that reminded Izuku of Nejire Hado of the Big Three just a little.

"_Well, our sessions won't have a set time._" she said. "_I need to keep you for at least twenty minutes each session, but we can just spend that twenty minutes chatting to burn the clock and then you can go. Or we can talk for hours and hours, it's all up to you. I'm not going to force you to say anything."_

The other voice chimed in again, and Yasuho giggled again.

"_I'm not going to tell him that!"_ she said. "_Tell him yourself!"_

She took a moment to collect herself, then continued.

"_Josuke's slander aside,"_ There was a half audible protest from the other individual, and then she continued. "_That's about the shape of it. We're just going to talk, Izuku. Nothing strenuous. Just think of me as a sympathetic ear for the time being; I'm told you ramble and mumble quite a bit?"_

Izuku flushed red and didn't respond. Yasuho giggled again.

"_Don't worry; I am too."_ she said. "_So you can tell me anything. I'd be interested on hearing about those Quirk analyses of yours, Nezu mentioned you have a knack for it. Maybe you can finally make some sense of my Quirk; even the doctors can't figure out how it works."_

Izuku straightened up at hearing that. A Quirk that even professionals hadn't been able to fully understand? That must have meant something incredible; some power nobody had ever seen before! That meant he could be the first person to actually decipher a Quirk...

"I-I can do Monday." he agreed, nodding again. "Um... where do I meet you?"

"_I'll text you my office location when Nezu actually tells me!"_ she replied. "_Until then, just call if you ever need to talk. I'm always ready to listen."_

Another interjection from the other voice.

"_So is Josuke."_ she added. "_Anything else you need, Izuku?" _

Izuku shook his head, then caught himself and smacked a palm to his forehead.

"Um, no... thank you!" He bowed his head. "I-I will see you on Monday!"

"_Great! Have a good weekend, Izuku!" _

Yasuho didn't hang up, letting Izuku do the honours before tucking his phone into his pocket and looking up at the sky. Therapy. He was going to therapy. Did he need therapy?

**A real hero should be able to deal with his own problems.**

He closed his eyes, and when they opened he looked forward. No time for self reflection.

He needed to buy some flowers, after all.


	15. In Which Midoriya Buys Flowers

Izuku stared up at the flower shop sign for a moment. Though 'Bramblebloom' seemed a strange name for a place selling flowers, Izuku supposed it at least sounded kind of... floral. Or at least plant-ish. Was plant-ish the correct word? Botanical maybe? That sounded too scientific. Wasn't floral arrangement something you could go to school for though? Did that make it a science? Did that make arts classes all count as sciences?

Izuku shook his head before that train of thought carried him any further into lunacy. He settled on instead swallowing down his trepidation and pushing the glass door open with one scarred hand on the metal handle and his other hand, still bleeding a little from when he punched through a car window, in his pocket.

"Good morning!"

The woman behind, no, atop the counter was... not a woman. At least, not a human woman. Instead the countertop was occupied by a vast array of flowers in vases, a little stand holding a big bouquet of colourful lollipops, and a small green thing smiling at him. Izuku halted where he stood and turned his head back towards the green thing, which was indeed alive, moving, and smiling at him. It was perhaps the size of a volleyball, with stumpy little legs and arms and a big round head that looked sort of like a chipmunks. As a matter of fact, the whole of it looked like a chipmunk, though it's ears looked more like those of a lemur, big and floppy with a little hole in the left one. It's eyes were small, beady and black, yet it's mouth was indeed curled up in a big smile. The whole affair was covered up in short dark green fur that turned a paler colour on the face and belly, with pink skin inside the ears.

"Hiya!" the creature called, proving to Izuku that it was indeed the person who had addressed him before. "I'm Petal, owner and proprietor of this happy little shop! What can I do to assist you?"

"I-I'm Izuku Midoriya," said Izuku, looking around the shop. "I... well, I need some flowers, and uh... a friend of mine suggested I come here. He said you were, uh, really good and not too expensive..."

Petal, as the creature was apparently named, grinned. Then she jumped some ten feet through the air, landing on the display table beside him without disturbing a single petal on the many flowers covering its surface. She plopped down onto her... haunches? Butt? She sat down, legs spread and hands on the metal table between them, and leaned closer.

"Yep!" she agreed. "I like to think I'm the best in the neighbourhood, actually! So, what's the occasion? Is it a date? No... you look kind of glum... maybe something for a friend? A sick friend?"

Izuku swallowed.

"They're..." he pushed his index fingers together and stared at the floor, something he did quite a bit when his already frayed nerves were being stressed even further. "They're for my... my mother."

"Oh... is she sick?" Petal asked, cocking her head to one side with a sad little frown on her strangely expressive face.

"N-no... she's... I-I'm... I'm visiting her grave..." The admission was quiet as a whisper, as he stared at the floor, but Petal's ears flicked and she nodded slowly. "I-I wanted to... bring her something, you-you know? But I... I thought flowers might..."

"Miss Petal?" a voice that was all at once strangely familiar and yet foreign to Izuku's ears called out suddenly, its owner slipping through the swinging door behind the counter with two armfuls of flowers. "I finished those orders for the wedding, but I fear we are running out of hydrangeas again."

Izuku looked and stared for a moment as Ibara Shiozaki, one of his peers in class 1-B, laid the spectacle of multicoloured plants out on a big metal table behind the counter and then caught his eye, eyes going wide for a moment. She was wearing a white apron stained with green and a few other choice colours over a plain white shirt and blue jeans, the vines that constituted both her hair and Quirk twirled together behind her head in a strange sort of braid. Petal looked between the two, her ears flicking and eyes narrowing, before she smiled and clapped her little paws together.

"Oh!" She looked back at Izuku. "You must be Izuku Midoriya! Oh, I saw you at the Sports Festival, you made quite the show! You and Ibara must be classmates!"

"Not quite, Miss Petal." Ibara shook her head, taking a step around the end of the counter and towards the other two. "I am in class 1-B. Midoriya is class 1-A. Some purport us to be rivals, but in actuality we are simply peers."

Izuku nodded in agreement, a little surprised by Ibara's sudden appearance in the flower shop. He had seen the girl around before, as he had most of class 1-B, but he had never really interacted with her in any meaningful way beyond basic pleasantries and greetings. Petal looked between the two again as Ibara came to a stop just a few feet away, before her little chipmunk face took on a mischievous aspect and she leapt over to the counter again.

"Ibara, could you please help Midoriya with his order?" she asked. "I'm going to make some calls about the wedding order and the hydrangeas. Just help him with whatever he needs!"

Before Ibara could get a word in edgewise, Petal disappeared through the swinging door, and Izuku was left alone with the girl who was apparently UA's resident florist-in-training. She sighed quietly, shaking her head, before turning towards Izuku and smiling. It was a strange smile, equal parts graceful and cold. Izuku swallowed.

"How can I be of assistance?" she asked.

"I... I..." Izuku glanced at the walls of the shop, covered in shelves that were themselves covered in even more flowers, and swallowed. "I need some-some flowers, for... my... my..."

He took a step back, away from her, away from the sudden pressure he felt as she stared him down with an almost blank gaze that betrayed only faintest hint of disdain. This wasn't the same fear sparked by Toga and her glittering mad eyes or her savage grins, this was something gentler and yet far, far more oppressive. He wasn't even sure what he had done to deserve such a look; he only knew that whatever it was, it must have made Ibara quite upset.

"Hopefully they are part of an apology," Ibara declared, her voice as cold and hard as steel in the winter. "But I wouldn't expect such a thing after some five weeks of silence."

Izuku blinked.

"I..." He looked at her, confused. "What... are you talk-talking about?"

Her expression shifted for a moment, from cold anger to quizzical confusion, before her eyes narrowed even further and the anger became almost overwhelming.

"You don't even remember." she spat the words. "You hurt her and you can't even be bothered to remember your crime."

She took a step closer to Izuku, who himself took another step back. She hadn't raised a hand, she hadn't begun to untie the knot her hair was in; she simply moved closer, and he moved away because the weight of her anger was like a sledgehammer beating at his chest and head. He felt guilty, and he wasn't even sure what he was guilty of. Then, without warning, she surged forward and grabbed his shoulder.

Red eyes.

Yellow eyes.

Why were they always different in his mind?

Blue eyes.

He was smiling. Laughing. Watching. He was amused at his weakness, his idol thought his suffering was funny. I AM HERE. He was there. He was watching, he was smiling and laughing and watching. She held him tight to her body, breasts pressed against his chest, tongue in his mouth and she giggled as-

"Please..."

He realized only a few moments later he was on his knees, head bowed and hands up, shielding himself from Ibara who herself had frozen where she stood, the anger slipping away as she stared down at his panicking, trembling form.

"I'm sorry please please please I don't want to hurt any more..." Be whispered the words as he shielded himself from her dark gaze and her anger. "Don't hurt me please..."

He heard something drop to the floor in front of him, and flinched away from the sound before he felt a soft hand touch his face. His eyes shot open and he saw her arm, slender and pale, her fingers against the edges of his ear while her palm pressed against his cheek, soft and warm and much too close so he swatted the hand away and felt the green lightning engulf his body.

"Midoriya."

Her voice was different now, calmer, that cold edge gone into nothing and replaced with only a gentle reprimand, more like a quiet reminder that he needed to stop what he was doing. It... it reminded Izuku of his mother, and without even willing it to be so he felt One For All's surging power fade away, and his muscles relax as he slumped where he knelt. Unbidden tears flooded his eyes as he realized the truth. He had cracked. Again. He had let his stupid stupid stupid insecurities and fear overtake him and he had nearly-

"Midoriya."

Her voice again, calming, soothing, like cool water on his head, washing over him, cleansing him... her hand was back on his cheek, but this time he leaned into it. He blinked, looking up, looking at her. She met his gaze unblinkingly, any possible confusion or lingering anger well hidden behind an expression of quiet concern and gentle warmth. He blinked away the tears in his eyes and noted that Ibara Shiozaki's eyes were quite like his own in their rich shade of green. Curious.

"Are you well?"

He almost laughed. But that would have been rude and pointless, so instead he nodded because it was better to weakly lie than to admit the legitimate truth. She stared at him unblinking for a moment after, eyes narrowing ever so slightly, then nodded back.

"Do you need any help?"

It was a simple question. It was a question Izuku had been asked, with wildly varying choices of words and sentence lengths, about a hundred times. Probably many, many more. He usually forgot, as his response was the same now as it had always been. He shook his head, climbing back up to his feet and looking around for the shop again.

"I-I... I could use some flowers." he said, pleased with how steady he managed to make his voice despite his total emotional imbalance. "I... I'm visiting my mom's grave."

He regretted the words a moment later when a look of utter shame washed over Ibara's face, and she looked at him with eyes that made him want to cry again. He cut her off with a shake of the head, tentatively reaching out and putting a hand on her shoulder.

"It-It's okay, you didn't know..." he assured her. "I... I don't want to talk about it. I-I just want some flowers. Do... do you have any in-in green?"

Ibara took a moment to collect herself as well, before silently taking his hand in her own. He started at first, but she led him to a wall of displayed flowers, many of them green and white with a little red dotted here and there among the pack. Izuku stared up at the wall, eyes picking through the arrangements with lightning speed.

"Green is a colour used to display calm and life." Ibara said, her voice soft as she pointed to some of the flowers. "White is for purity and cleanliness and, usually, health. Red is passion of many sorts; a red rose represents love and lust. Meanwhile, a poppy is usually used to denote sacrifice."

She pointed to each flower in turn.

"Might I recommend something of this sort?" she continued.

She proceeded to lay out a short list of strange flower names that left Izuku a little lost, and she seemed to realize when she smiled and handed him one of each, plucked from the wall.

"A simple bouquet; unless you'd rather put them in a vase so they last longer?" she asked.

"The... I'll put them in-in a vase." Izuku agreed. "She... she'd like them to last."

Ibara withdrew behind the counter and began assembling a rather pretty little arrangement; a small circle of green flowers Izuku couldn't remember the names of, with a single poppy in the centre at the centre at his request. His mother had always loved poppies; apparently before he had been born, she and Izuku's father had travelled to Canada in the fall, where most of the people they met were wearing fake poppies as pins. His father had poked himself with those pins at least five times trying to put them on, and his left pectoral had resembled a well-used pincushion for several days afterwards.

"Will that be all?" Ibara asked, and Izuku nodded as he reached for his wallet.

She shook her head.

"I'll pay." she told him, her own wallet emerging onto the counter. "I... I must apologize to you somehow."

"No, it-it's fine, I can-" She cut him off with a raised finger.

"Let me pay this time." she said. "And you can give me something later in exchange, if you truly must."

Izuku wasn't sure how to come back to that, so he just nodded and let her pay for the flowers. She placed the small arrangement, including a pretty little bell-shaped vase, in his hands. He stood there dumbly for a moment, before thanking her and turning to leave.

"Oh, and Midoriya?" He turned when she called to him, his shoulder against the door. She had that finger raised again, wagging it back and forth.

"It isn't polite to lie." she told him, before turning and disappearing into the back room through that swinging door.


	16. In Which Aizawa Listens

"Things are getting worse."

Shota Aizawa was not a man given to sentimentality of any sort. That wasn't to say he was the kind of man who considered emotions worthless; he knew well mental health relied on balance rather than denial. He was capable of laughter, of crying, of gnashing his teeth in a rage. He knew the aching touch of frustration, the lingering torment of grief, the brilliant surge of red hot fury. He knew what it was to laugh and how it was to smile, and he knew all of these things well.

But emotion was not sentimentality. Emotion was a natural chemical and psychological reaction to external stimuli. Sentimentality was often an unhealthy fixation of some sort. A weakness, rather than a strength, something you had to cover for and your enemy could exploit. Aizawa also knew he was sentimental in a few rare cases. He knew that anybody who hurt his students would die a painful death. He knew he wanted to drive a knife into Himiko Toga's chest, and the only reason he wouldn't was because that particular vendetta was owed to Izuku Midoriya first and foremost. He also knew Midoriya would never do such a thing.

He knew Katsuki Bakugou would. He just didn't care. Let Bakugou seethe. Better the boy be angry than listless.

"There's kids now." he continued, adjusting his posture against the tree trunk supporting his back, it's leafy boughs his shelter from the warm autumn sun. "Two of them. Twins. It's insane."

He looked over his shoulder for a moment. There was nobody there behind the tree. Nobody was listening to him but himself, and the person to whom he spoke. Oh, sure, there were others around, but they wouldn't hear much of anything at the moment.

"He's insane." Aizawa leaned back against the tree, eyes closing but ears wide open. "He wants to keep them. He's going to keep them because I can't stop him without being a hypocrite. Two babies. It's insane."

He knew he was repeating himself. He also knew his conversation partner wouldn't mind.

"Izuku worries me, and that worries me too." Aizawa admitted. "He's... he's in a bad place. A really bad place. And instead of letting anybody help him, he's shut himself up inside that bad place and locked the doors, boarded up the windows... he won't let anyone in. I've tried. I'm trying."

He felt tears pricking at the corners of his eyes.

"I'm sorry." he said. They were worthless, wasted words, but he said them anyways because he was. "I'm trying. I'm trying so damn hard. But he's impossible to get a read on. It's ridiculous. He cried once because Sato made a really nice batch of red velvet cupcakes in the dorms and he said they were the best thing he'd ever tasted... I guess he thought it was a betrayal to say something like that. He... he'll cry for that. He'll cry so much. But he won't let himself cry for you."

He looked at the gravestone of Inko Midoriya, which stood right beside the tree against which he sat.

"Okay... that's a lie." he admitted. "He cries for you all the time. Quietly. Behind closed doors. Shoji told me... you might not know Shoji. He's the one who wears the mask, really big. One of the most mature kids in the class. He and Tsuyu, Tsuyu's the green-haired girl with the long tongue, they're the only two I feel I can really trust."

Aizawa shook his head.

"I'm getting off topic." He took a deep breath. "He won't let himself mourn properly. You've been here for two weeks and I don't think he's visited once. He's had opportunities... All Might offers to bring him every weekend. Any of his classmates would come. Even Bakugou. Maybe not Jiro or Mineta, actually... but the rest would. It's worrying."

"I don't know if he's scared, or if he just doesn't want to... maybe both. Or maybe he just doesn't think he can do it. I don't think he's afraid of being attacked, at least. He leaves campus sometimes. He goes out for ice cream with Uraraka and Iida sometimes. He and Shoji went to meet Shoji's family once. He spent hours writing about Mutant-type Quirks in his notebook after that..."

Aizawa chuckled.

"Maybe he's just trying to build up courage." he wondered aloud. "Or maybe he's still... coming to terms with everything. He starts therapy in a few days, apparently. I don't know the therapist, though. Apparently I know her boyfriend, but... nobody comes to mind. Probably a former coworker. I'm rambling."

Aizawa stood up, climbing up off the ground and dusting off the backs of his legs. The gravestone stayed where it was, of course.

"I..." He looked down at it, a simple pillar of white marble. All Might had paid for it, he had paid for the whole funeral, but Izuku had asked for something simple. Apparently it was what Inko would have wanted.

Before he could finish his sentence, he heard footsteps approaching, fallen leaves crunching, and without thinking too much about it he leapt up on a tree branch and scaled to a decent height as quietly as possible. He wasn't sure who was coming, but he doubted the sight of his quote-en-quote 'hobo vagrant serial-killer ass' (thank you, Bakugou) looming over a gravestone was something the average person would react to sensibly. So he hid, and he waited.

Then he saw Izuku Midoriya clutching an arrangement of flowers, and he blinked as he crouched even lower on his branch, listening in. Part of him knew this was impolite, eavesdropping on a private conversation... but he needed to know. He needed this insight as to Midoriya's condition, the one thing he couldn't get by simply asking the boy. So he listened and watched as Midoriya laid the flowers down beside the grave, digging a little divot in the grass with his hand and placing the vase inside. Then the boy dropped to his knees and bowed his head.

"Hi..." he breathed, his voice barely audible, before speaking up. "Hi mom. I... I'm sorry I... I haven't been visiting. It's been... I wanted to, but... I-I just..."

A sniffle.

"I'm here now, though!" Midoriya looked up, a weak and watery smile on his face. "I... I came! I brought flowers, mom... a girl from another class actually made the arrangement. It's pretty, right?"

Midoriya fell silent for a moment.

"I... she was upset about something." Midoriya murmured. "I... something I did, I think. I don't really know. But then I... we didn't fight! We talked it out, j-just like you always liked to! And then she made this, and I kind of owe her for the flowers... she paid for them."

Midoriya sniffled again.

"I... I miss you, mom." he admitted. "It's been... it's been really hard. I try to be good, and be a hero and save people with a smile, I even saved some people this morning! There was a car crash, and I helped everybody and I got to work with Backdraft! He was there, and his agency was there, and we saved people. I... I saved people, mom."

Then Midoriya looked back down at the ground, his hands tightening into fists atop his knees and an ugly sob escaping him.

"But... I-I couldn't... save you..." The words were choked and half-audible, but Aizawa heard them clear as day. "I... she used... used your face and she.. I didn't want it mom but she used something in a needle I think and she took me upstairs and..."

Midoriya was crying now, an awful sound that made Aizawa's stomach curdle inside him. He wanted to leap out of the tree and comfort his student, but... that didn't seem like a good idea. Startling Midoriya right now tended to lead to spontaneous Full-Cowling punches and near-missed with decapitation. So he stayed in the tree and hated himself for not acting because he knew those prior excuses were a lie.

"She's pregnant, mom." Midoriya continued, speaking the words like a sinner at confessional. "She's pregnant, it's twins, I'm the father and she's pregnant and now the League has her and they're gonna hurt her and I should hate her, mom, I should want to kill her or hurt her but I'm scared because they're going to hurt her and I don't want her to get hurt..."

Aizawa's eyes went wide.

"I know it's stupid, I know I should hate her I know I should think she deserves it but I can't..." Midoriya was holding onto the marble pillar with his hands now, head pressed against the smooth stone as his tears fell into the newly grown grass below. "It's like Kaachan, mom, I should hate them but I can't. But it's worse, she hurt you mom, she killed you she took you from me and I can't even hate her for it because I'm so scared..."

Aizawa braced himself.

"I don't want to be a villain." Midoriya whispered, loud enough for his mother and Aizawa and nobody else to hear. "I don't want to be like Kaachan. I don't want to hate anybody else. I-I can't handle it, I couldn't hate them mom... I'm not big enough to hate that much. I'm so scared, I'm so scared and I'm only getting more scared..."

Aizawa made his decision then. He would jump out of the tree and take Midoriya and-

And help. Somehow. He had to. But before he could, the sobbing cut out, the words stopped falling, and Midoriya went silent.

"No."

It was a single word, spoken as Midoriya rose to his feet, wiping his face clean of all the mess crying makes.

"I... I won't be afraid, mom." he said, voice more controlled, more calm. "I don't have to. You're right. I... I'm going to be a hero. I'm going to save her. I'm going to save my... my kids. I'm going to save all of them. It doesn't matter if I'm supposed to hate them, or if I'm supposed to want her to suffer... I'm not like that."

Midoriya hugged the pillar, and then stepped back and nodded, a smile on his face.

"I'm Deku." he declared. "I'm the Hero That Can Do It."

He turned away at that moment, leaving the flowers by the gravestone and making his way back to the main path that would lead him to the graveyard gates. Aizawa watched him go for a while, until he crested a nearby hill and disappeared from sight. He dropped from the tree then, and took a deep breath. He looked back at the gravestone, reaching out and touching its top with a hand.

"I'm sorry." he whispered. "I'll protect him. I promise. Even if it kills me, I'll keep him safe."


	17. In Which Izuku Asks a Question

"Class dismissed."

Midnight clapped her hands with a gleeful grin as the students of class 1-A rose from their chairs, stowing homework in their bags and already discussing after school plans. Izuku Midoriya listened to them all, letting the words wash over him. Kaminari, Sero and Kirishima were going to try and drag Kaachan to some arcade Kaminari had found while getting lost looking for an Italian restaurant he had heard of. Shoji and Tokoyami were studying together for the upcoming English test in Present Mic's class, and also eating gratuitous amounts of cookies if Sato's presence was anything to go by. Jiro had a jam session planned with... somebody. She refused to say who.

Curious, Izuku reflected. It wasn't really his place to go asking questions about other's secrets, not when he had so many of his own to hide. Mina continued to prove an impressively shameless snoop when she whispered to herself her intention to follow along.

"Deku, you want to come study with Iida and I?" Uraraka's voice interrupted his definitely-not-eavesdropping, as her hand came down on his shoulder with her thumb still raised. He jolted despite himself, but didn't panic for once. Instead he calmly turned and shook his head.

"I-I have..." He glanced all around, before leaning in and continuing in a hushed voice. "I'm meeting with Miss Nyanja today."

He didn't want to say the word 'therapy'. Not here. Who knew what Mina and other such incorrigible gossips among the class would do with such information? Nothing good, he could say that much. So he said it quietly and swallowed afterwards, waiting for Uraraka to ask him why, but instead she smiled and nodded once.

"Alright!" she said. "Good luck!"

She turned away, leaving Izuku just a little confused, before Iida also wished him luck and followed her, straining to keep up even with his notoriously long stride. Izuku blinked as they walked away; he had half-expected more questions, a whole year-end exam as to who Miss Nyanja was and why he had to meet with her. Did they already know? That seemed strange, who would have told them?

Nezu. Of course. The principal was weird in his ability to seemingly tell people only what they needed to know, exactly when they needed to know it. That would explain why his two closest friends in UA knew about a therapist he had never mentioned to anybody before, and also why they apparently knew to be discreet about it.

So Izuku made his way to Miss Nyanja's office, tucked away near the administrative sector of UA's main building some two minutes from his last class. He had to ascend some stairs and make a few turns to get there, but eventually he found the office proper. The door was marked with a name-plate that indeed denoted a 'Doctor Y. Nyanja' who resides within. Izuku noted the door was ajar, before knocking once with a scarred fist.

"Come in!" he had barely finished the first of three intended knocks before she called for him to enter, and he did as he was bid immediately, letting the door swing shut behind him as he entered.

Doctor Yasuho Nyanja was a young woman, as her voice had suggested to him, most likely in her early or mid-twenties. She smiled at him, waving with one hand. Her hair was a brilliant pink shade, falling over her shoulders loose and free. She was wearing some surprisingly bright colours; a sky blue blouse with sleeves that ended well above her elbows, and a black skirt dotted with pink roses. She had the build of a runner, long and thin with slender limbs with the subtle hint of muscle in her biceps and calves.

Her smile was bright and genuine, a flash of brilliantly white teeth, and when he bowed in greeting she giggled musically and beckoned for him to approach closer.

"Just a smile is greeting enough, Izuku." she told him, gesturing to a simple black folding chair identical to the one she was sitting in behind her narrow desk. "Sorry about the seating; the rest of my new furniture is in storage somewhere on the other end of campus, and Josuke insisted on being the one to move it for me even though he had a bunch of publicity things to handle today..."

She smiled wistfully, as if his actions amused her more than they annoyed, and when Izuku sat down in the chair she opened a small brown leather notebook and snatched a pencil that seemed to appear from nowhere behind one of her ears.

"But that's enough about my knucklehead of a boyfriend," she continued, jotting something down in her notebook before looking at him. "How was your weekend, Izuku? I understand you got up to a fair bit, if the news is anything to go by."

Izuku chuckled, a rather sad little sound and perhaps a bit of forced, but he managed to also nod while doing so to make it seem a little more genuine.

"I... helped out some other heroes." he said, sheepishly rubbing the back of his head. "It was kind to out-of-nowhere and I probably made a fool out of myself..."

"The news tell a different story, but I suppose you were the one who was there..." Doctor Nyanja looked almost disappointed, for some reason, before shaking her head a little. "Anything else interesting happen this weekend?"

Izuku thought for a moment about his visit to his mother's grave, then shook his head.

"Nothing in particular." he lied. "Just the car crash and lunch in town, really. W-What did you do?"

The Doctor chuckled, gesturing to the office around them. Izuku blushed, realizing that perhaps that was a stupid question, before she shook her head and tapped the desk with her pencil.

"Mostly moving in." she said. "Nezu gave Josuke and I a nice little apartment on campus, so we can both stay close to our work. You're a hero fan, aren't you? All Might described you as a bit of a fanboy, actually..."

Izuku blushed, rubbing the back of his head with one hand while the other clenched in his lap a little.

"I-I don't... well... maybe..." he admitted the truth with a slight nod, and Yasuho clapped her hands delightedly.

"Oh, you and Josuke will get along swimmingly!" she declared with a happy grin. "He's a pro hero! Gappy, the Bubble Hero."

Izuku wasn't completely familiar with the name, but some part of it seemed to strike a chord of familiarity within him. He did know about a lot of pros; it stood to reason he'd heard of Gappy before. He'd probably know him better by sight, at least.

"If-If it's okay to ask..." Yasuho gestured for him to continue with that same kind smile, and so he did. "When we spoke over the phone, you-you mentioned th-that your Quirk was... strange. I-I was wondering if I could... maybe see it? And help you figure... figure it out? If-If it's not t-too much trouble, of course, you d-don't have to show me anything..."

Yasuho raised a hand to slow him down, before she took up a pen from her desk. She offered it to him, placing it in an outstretched palm, and then waved a hand in such a way to gesture to the whole office.

"Hide that for me." she told him, closing her eyes and raising her hands to her ears. "I won't look, don't worry. Just hide it somewhere in the office."

Izuku nodded, a little confused but eager to see what it was she could do. He waited until her eyes were closed and then stole away to one corner, peering at a filing cabinet and considering it as a hiding place. But then he paused; what if he changed the test? He stepped away, towards the windows; all were already open. Quiet as a mouse (Kaachan had taught him well how to move silently) he crept to one of the open windows and dropped the pen out, before creeping back to his seat and tapping Yasuho on the shoulder.

She opened her eyes and then grinned, before taking her hands from her ears and pulling out her phone. It was a simple black and silver smartphone, touchscreen and all. She held it one hand and closed her eyes for a moment, before he heard it ding with a new message notification. She tapped it, read it, and then looked at him.

"I am going to need that pen back later, so if you could fetch it from outside that would be wonderful." she said, smiling, and Izuku flushed scarlet with embarrassment before freezing. "Yep. Outside, you dropped it on the lawn. Clever, thinking outside the box like that. But..."

She raised her phone.

"My Quirk is called Easy Admission." she showed him the message; the caller was unknown, the number seemingly random, but what it said was undeniable.

Outside, on the lawn.

"It's simple, but also constantly strange." Yasuho continued. "If I need to find something or go somewhere, it tells me where or how. It even gives directions. At first I thought it was a prank or something, somebody pretending I had a Quirk... but it always messages me from an unregistered number, and it can't be traced to any known origin. Nobody can explain it."

"Sir Nighteye was similar." Deku said suddenly, as a train of thought unravelled. "Quirks, while usually physical and reliant on real life things, sometimes defy that expectation. Sir Nighteye could see the future, even though that's not scientifically explainable by anybody. Your Easy Admission is probably similar. As a matter of fact it could be that you too share an ancestor with a similar Quirk that mutated and diverged over the years into your respective Quirks, maybe three or four generations up the chain..."

He felt her eyes on him, and he blushed red when he realized he had once again fallen into a spiral of muttering and pressing his fingertips together like some sort of crazy person. He swallowed, looking away from her, and she giggled softly.

"Don't worry, Izuku, if I hadn't wanted you to analyze me, I wouldn't have gone to the effort of showing you my Quirk." Yasuho reassured him, before snapping her fingers. "However, that does bring me to a nice little segue; I can't help but analyze you as well, and I've noticed something."

Izuku gulped, but there was something in the way she shook her head slowly and touched a finger to her desk that made him relax just a touch.

"You don't allow yourself to be successful." she said, and Izuku blinked once as he stared, no longer worried but instead rather confused. "There is something in you that so many lack, but it's like you don't realize how rare a person you are."

"I-I... I'm..." Izuku wasn't sure what to say, so he scrambled for a time to find words that could express his thoughts. "I'm not... special. I-I'm just De... Izuku."

"You are 'just Izuku'," Yasuho agreed, and she gestured with her fingers to make those already audible quotation marks as plain as possible. "But I don't think you realize just how rare an Izuku is. Izuku, you did something very brave over the weekend. You saw a crisis situation and you stepped into action right away; reports say you caught one of the cars after it went off the road. Did you have any time to think?"

"No, I-I just..."

Izuku paused there.

"I just moved." he said, and then he looked down at his scarred hands with some unknowable feeling running through his veins. "I saw there was something wrong and I moved."

"There's a saying, you know." Yasuho said, leaning closer to him, elbows pressed on her desk and hands folded under her chin. "They say that the best heroes all have the same origin. Those heroes say that when they first saw injustice or danger, they didn't think. They-"

"They just moved." Izuku finished the statement because he had heard it before, before he had been who he was now, before he had been pulled from his mess of a life and set on a path to heroism.

He had heard it from All Might, after all.

All Might, on the beach, looking upon him with those black eyes, dark eyes with rings of blue.

She was still atop him.

She was holding him.

He was watching.

He was smiling.

I am here.

I am disappointed.

What kind of hero would let her... do that? Why did he? Why didn't he fight her? Why couldn't he use the power, this power, his power, and fight her off? Why did All Might watch? Why did he smile? Why would he? Why did he seem pleased? Why did he seem amused?

Why?

Why?

Why?

"Why?"

He spoke the word aloud, and then realized that Yasuho was on her feet, a hand held out towards him as if offering him help. He then realized he was curled up again, shoulders hunched and knees drawn towards his chest, his head had been bowed, his lips dry and his chest aching with all the anguish of everything he had lost so far and everything he still had yet to lose.

"Izuku, are you-" He nodded, interrupting her question.

"I'm fine!" he declared, before straightening up, sitting down normally again. "I-I'm sorry, I..."

Something caught his eye, something to the side of him by the window that was still open. Small and light, it bobbed up and down and it took him a moment to see that it was something iridescent and translucent, a bubble. A soap bubble, it seemed, and when Izuku got to his feet to go examine it he saw that it was quite large, and inside there was something else floating.

"Is that..." He reached towards the bubble and the moment his fingertips brushed against the soap it broke, the membrane vanishing with a little popping sound and the pen falling toward the floor.

His reflexes kicked in and he caught it and held it, stared at it for a moment, before turning towards Yasuho. She was giggling a little behind her hand.

"That would be Josuke." she said, before looking pointedly at the door, which opened a moment later.

"Hey Yasuho, I saw one of your pens on the ground outside so-"

The man who entered the room was tall and lanky, but in that lank one could easily see the whipcord musculature that marked him as strong and skinny, rather than weak and underfed. His arms were raised, pointing twin finger guns at Yasuho behind her desk even as his eyes moved over to Izuku. They were strangely mismatched, heterochromatic like Shouto; the left was a bright green, the right a deeper blue. He was wearing the uniform of a sailor, a pressed white jacket and pants with blue stripes along the tied collar and sides of the legs, with the folded cap atop his head tilted at a somewhat jaunty angle.

"Ah... he stuck around!" the man grinned at Izuku, showing off the prodigious gap between his two upper-right front teeth. "The name's Josuke, or Gappy if you're feeling professional. You must be Deku!"

He extended a hand, which Izuku took after a moment's consideration. Josuke had a firm grip indeed, and Izuku noticed that Yasuho shared a glance with him even as they greeted one another.

"Sorry for interrupting, but the door was ajar so I didn't think you were still here." Izuku glanced at the door, now open. Hadn't he closed it before?

"I think I-I was just about ready to go..." Izuku said, nodding rapidly as he got up out of his chair. "It was really... uh, really nice to meet you! Both-Both of you! Thank you for having me..."

He bowed and withdrew, eager to escape the pair of them. Well... perhaps not Josuke. He seemed nice, and Izuku was ready to do a little research on Gappy the Bubble Hero to see what he had done in the past. But Yasuho...

"Why?" he whispered softly, standing at the top of the stairs and staring at his own hand for a moment, the way the scars thinned and thickened depending on how he flexed his hand, the way it trembled and his index finger was slower to react than the rest of it.

He didn't have an answer.


	18. In Which Jiro's Guitar Gently Weeps

Hanta Sero was enjoying the slightly muffled sounds of very old music. Pre-Quirk, he estimated, at least a hundred and fifty years old. A classic as far as he could discern, wafting softly from the room above him, belonging to one Kyoka Jiro. He was nice and relaxed, eyes closed so he might listen better to the music as it played.

Jiro was talented, that much was obvious. He could practically see in her hands the guitar, dexterous fingers dancing along the strings to produce such sweet sounds with such frequent ease. He wasn't ashamed to admit he often though of Kyoka's hands, and the rest of her as well. His friends may have had their eyes wandering elsewhere; Kirishima had eyes for Mina, Kaminari was enamoured with any girl he laid eyes on, but it was poor Sero who had already fallen hopelessly in love.

"I look at you all, see the love there that is sleeping..." Sero smiled as Kyoka began to sing again, her voice husky and melodic, accompanying the guitar without either drowning the other out. "While my guitar gently weeps..."

The room was empty but for himself; Kaminari may have enjoyed turning his dorm into a party hall every night, but it was Sero's place to lay on his bed and relax in his simple abode. The walls may have been just about perfectly soundproofed (though rumour had it Shoji could still hear just about everything that went on if he had all his ears out) but the floors/ceilings? Those were clearly dampened, but not silent.

As such, Sero was often serenaded by Jiro before bed. She would spend about an hour every day between nine and ten PM playing and singing, and after his first accidental listen Sero had made a point to retreat to his own room early to 'tune in' and enjoy the show. It was a good way to unwind, and after a nice long shower it felt good to kick back in bed and let Jiro's music ease his mind.

And he had plenty of need to ease it. The retirement of All-Might, the rise of the League of Villains, and of course the absolutely fucked-up shit that had happened to Midoriya. Sero had never been too close to the boy; it wasn't anything personal, but Midoriya had Iida and Uraraka and Tokoyami, and apparently Shoji these days. Sero had Kaminari and Mineta and sometimes even Bakugou (though how that had happened was still a mystery to all involved). Their paths rarely crossed, their groups rarely conjoined. It was not fated to be, his mother would say over a cup of fragrant tea. His father would just chuckle and ask Sero why he was thinking so hard about all this.

Sero wasn't sure. He had simply never gotten close to Midoriya, same way he had never gotten particularly close to Uraraka or Tokoyami. They were different folks with different strokes, filed into different little categories like all his dads spreadsheets. Focus groups that had dissimilar interests and rarely aligned. Sero's idea of a good night was one where he had a cup of jasmine tea (courtesy of his mother's frequent shipments of the stuff), twenty minutes of stretches and all his homework already finished and stowed away in a bag. Midoriya's idea of a good night apparently involved a dozen laps of the dorm and some rigorous calisthenics out on the front yard.

It was just that simple, he supposed. He preferred a quiet, simple time. Midoriya seemed to attract chaos. There was his reasoning.

It took him a few moments to notice that the music had stopped. It wasn't any one thing; he gradually came to realize that the room was quieter, the tick-tocking of his clock in the corner the only constant noise now. That and something else, a muffled sound he couldn't quite make out. He sat up in his bed and listened more closely, cupping a hand to his ear. It sounded like... was that... sobbing?

Sero knew what a crying girl sounded like; he had a younger sister who cried when she saw bugs that had been squashed on the sidewalk. This was a surprisingly similar sound, a mournful, choked crying that made his body tense with automatic brotherly instinct. But he stopped himself from moving just yet... this was Jiro. She was notorious for her... coldness, was the word he chose, the distance she maintained from most of her peers. Particularly that of late, where she seemed to rigorously avoid all but the most necessary social encounters. Sero wasn't sure he could just go on up to her room and... do something.

But she was clearly in pain. Hurting in at least one way. And so Sero swallowed and remembered for a split second the image of All-Might pointing at him, at the world.

It was his turn to act.

He rose from his bed and quietly slipped upstairs. Curfew was almost an hour away, more than enough time to pay Jiro a quick visit and see if she was okay. He rolled his shoulders and approached the room he knew to be hers, and moments before his hand could touch the door it opened from the inside. He stared for a moment at Jiro, tears on her cheeks and red in her eyes, her guitar still clasped in one hand.

"Um..." Sero swallowed, unsure of what to say. "Are... you okay?"

He mentally slapped himself; that was a stupid question. Clearly she wasn't, and she would probably say she was. That's what they did in all the movies and TV shows, after all, and those comprised the vast majority of Sero's knowledge on women, relationships and psychology all at once. Jiro stared at him for a short while, eyes red and puffy, one hand still holding the door while the other hung by her side.

Then she stepped back, and with that same hand silently bid him to enter. Sero did so without thinking, one foot leading the other as he stepped inside Jiro's room. There were guitars on the wall, music sheets on the desk by the window, an honest-to-god subwoofer the size of a washing machine in the corner... he shook his head and refocused his attention on the crying girl who had brought him here.

She was wearing a tank top and shorts, he noted. The sort of things he imagined she would sleep in, comfy and loose. No shoes or socks, and he idly noted that she painted her toenails as well. Huh. Neat. Her hair was a bit of a mess, one of her ear jacks looped loosely around her finger as she looked him up and down. Orange t-shirt and light grey sweatpants, his preferred casual wear. Her eyes met his, and he opened his mouth.

She shushed him with one finger.

"How much did you hear?" she asked, and he blinked twice.

She pulled that finger away.

"I... heard you start crying." he replied.

She swallowed, looking over to her window for a moment. It was closed, before she walked over and pulled it open, taking a deep breath of the night air. Sero stood in the centre of the room, a little confused... okay, more than a little confused. But he said nothing. This was her room, these were her problems, he was just here because his feet started moving before his brain could catch up and remind them that this was a bad idea.

She sat down on the bed with a quiet sigh, and then gestured to her desk. He walked over and sat down by it, in a comfy little swivel chair with no armrests. She stared at him, and he stared back in silence. They stayed this way for a long few moments. Then she averted her eyes, looking down at the floor instead.

"I'm pissed off at Midoriya."

Sero blinked, but he said nothing. This was... strange, sure, but it wasn't his place to tell Jiro who she could and couldn't hate. This was her show, her admission of guilt and it was taking place in her room. Besides, she was probably about to take a deep breath and explain to him exactly what this was all about.

"He shouldn't be here right now." Jiro continued. "He's not... stable. He's messing up everybody else with his breakdowns and episodes. Everybody has to walk on eggshells around him. It's throwing us all off and I brought it up to Aizawa-sensei and he just told me that this was the safest place for Midoriya to be right now but he's wrong."

Sero nodded. Not in agreement, not quite, but he at least understood what Jiro was talking about. Midoriya wasn't exactly stable. Not that he was before the whole thing with... the night, but nowadays he was pretty frail mentally. Given what had happened to him though, Sero was surprised the green-haired cannonball of 1-A had managed to cling to any semblance of normalcy for this long.

"And I know he went through something awful, and I... I know he lost his mom, but this isn't the place for him to deal with those kinds of issues." Jiro continued. "He should be... I don't know, with other family. Or maybe just living on campus or something. But keeping him in class is screwing things up for everyone."

Sero wasn't sure he agreed with that. Midoriya had caused a couple small incidents, sure, but all things considered he had been about as eager to train for heroism as ever. Actually, more so than usual, to the point where even the work-obsessed Kirishima had been showing hints of worry about Midoriya's absurd regimen. He was fairly certain that if he glanced out Jiro's window right now he'd see the boy doing a thousand push-ups or running around campus for the third time tonight or some other equally ridiculous workout.

But most of that didn't have any effect on classes. In heroism classes he was always a little touch and go, but never to the point of causing trouble. He just got a little twitchy around female students if there weren't any dudes nearby. Which was like, the opposite of most of the guys in class, but then again, given what had happened...

Sero couldn't exactly blame him.

"And I know, I probably sound super selfish or bitchy and what happened to him was awful, but I don't understand why he's still here if he's still recovering from everything." Jiro continued, or perhaps concluded. "And then there's this... other thing. I can't talk about it, but... he said something the other day."

Her face had been slowly moving away from that expression of sorrow, but it shifted back now, her eyes dropping. Sero shook his head.

"I'm not going to make you." he assured her. "But... uh, I feel like you're being a little unfair to Midoriya right now."

She looked up... was that betrayal in those lilac eyes? It was... Sero swallowed, and raised a hand to beg for time.

"Hear me out." he said. "I... I'm not so good with words, so don't blame me if this sounds kind of awful. But Midoriya... Midoriya's been keeping up with the rest of us. He's been working hard, getting better, faster, stronger... I mean, for crying out loud, he has the second best grades in class at this point right after Yaoyorozu! And she's some kind of super-genius!"

She was still staring at him, and he pushed on because he couldn't stop now.

"And he just lost his mom." She flinched at that. A low blow, sure, but an important think to make note of. "Maybe he's still here because he doesn't have anybody else. We've never heard him talk about any other relatives; hell, besides Todoroki's weird All-Might-love-child thing, have you heard anybody mention his dad before?"

She paused at that, her expression shifting to a look of real curiosity. He was also digging through his memories and, almost surprisingly, he found he was right in his assertion. Nobody ever brought up Midoriya's dad.

"So maybe he's here because he has nowhere else to be." Sero said. "Maybe he's here because... we're all he's got. 1-A could be the only thing he has left. I mean, we all laugh at Mina when she calls Aizawa-Sensei 'dad', but we really are like a big defective family, aren't we? Maybe we're Midoriya's family, or at least the closest thing he has left."

He ended it with that, because he wasn't even sure where most of that came from. Maybe his overthinking this whole scenario wasn't such a bad thing then, if it meant he could stop Jiro from hating Midoriya. If she did, and people knew... a lot of people had Midoriya's back. It would be bad for her popularity, to say the least.

She was clearly thinking about it, one hand under her chin and holding her head up, eyes half-lidded as she pondered. It was unnervingly cute, and Sero flushed a little and turned his head to glance out the window as casually as he could manage. Then his eyes narrowed as a thought occurred to him.

"Wait... how did you know I was outside the door?"

She started, eyes going wide again, and then tapped her ear, and more particularly the jack dangling from it. She looked down at the floor as if a little ashamed of something.

"I keep one jack plugged in to the floor." she admitted. "In case you sing along."

"You know I... you know I listen to your playing?" Sero asked, more than a little surprised. He had thought himself subtle.

"You hum stuff I play during breakfast and class." she replied. "At first I thought it was coincidence, that you just liked the same music as me, but I thought about it and realized you were humming the exact same songs. Mr. Blue Sky sealed the deal there; why the heck would you be listening to ELO? That was; unless you were just listening to me."

She didn't look accusatory; in fact, she seemed almost bemused.

"I'm sorry..." he said, looking away again.

"Don't be." Her retort was sharp and sudden, as if she'd jabbed him with one of those headphone jacks of hers. "Like I said, I've known for a while. I just didn't say anything because it was supposed to be a secret. By the way, you... uh... when I played Three Doors Down and you..."

He flushed a much brighter red, and the two had matching shades of scarlet on their face for a moment.

"You... heard me singing." He didn't phrase it as a question, because it was instead the answer.

"Yeah." She nodded. "You... didn't sound half bad."

That gave him a cause to double take, and she laughed at him, the first time she'd smiled since he arrived. He also cracked a grin, after a moment, and then the two shared in laughter. She hefted her guitar in one hand, and looked at him almost quizzically.

"Lights out isn't for another half hour." she said. "Wanna... I dunno, jam out?"

Sero shrugged.

"I can't sing any songs with screaming in them," he warned. "But if you know how to play, I dunno, classic rock..."

She plucked the strings slowly, at first playing random notes while bobbing her head. She had her tongue between her teeth and her eyes were closed tight, an audible sound of concentration emitting from her throat. Then she settled into an actual riff, slowly playing something Sero realized was Fleetwood Mac. He scrambled internally, thanking his uncle Hondo for his archaic musical tastes, and then realized it was Tusk.

"Nice." he muttered, remembering the words with a moment of mental panic before grinning.

The two spent around thirty minutes together, playing music and singing and laughing when Sero's voice cracked or Jiro fumbled notes from laughing at said cracks. It was a worryingly good time for both of them, as Jiro admitted at the end... but she wouldn't be particularly upset if they did it again some time.

Sero took his leave with one last wave and grin, and when she winked at him before he closed her door he took a moment to actually comprehend the evening. He'd just been alone with a girl, in her room, hanging out and doing stuff. Was... was this a date?

Meh. He shrugged. Maybe. Probably not. It was just a... neighbourly social call.

At least, that's what he thought.


	19. In Which Bakugo Apologizes

"Close, but not quite..."

Izuku's teeth bit a little harder on the inside of his cheek, his green eyes narrowed to thin slits as he pondered. Finally, he nodded once, released his cheek and spoke.

"Checkmate."

Shoji stared down at the board for a long moment, eyes narrowed, before shaking his head. One powerful hand stretched down, sliding a bishop into an advantageous position formerly occupied by a now taken knight, and then retracted as Izuku took in the new move and retroactively realized his error. A rook slid to the right to block, but it was too late; the Queen filled in the open space and now it was Izuku who was in checkmate, his king pinned in place.

"I believe that is in fact, my checkmate." he replied, voice low and even. "Well played, Midoriya."

Izuku took in the state of the board and groaned after a long moment, using a finger to knock his king over and admit defeat. He took one of Shoji's hands in his own and shook it, rising up to his feet as he did so. To his left he could practically hear the gears in Iida's head turning, as he pondered the game.

"I had thought your defence admirable, Shoji, but was it truly all a ruse?" he asked after a moment, adjusting his glasses as he looked over the board again. "Your early plays suggested a more offensive tack, particularly with your knights."

"I observed Midoriya's early plays and noted his eagerness in pushing up his pawns." Shoji replied, nodding slowly. "I reasoned that, instead of meeting force with force, it would be best to manipulate his eagerness into an ideal ambush for myself."

"So I just... gave you what you wanted?" Izuku looked a little downcast, eyes locked on his fallen king as he pondered. "I was trying to bait you into moving forward to counter me, but when you didn't I thought you were on the back foot or something. I didn't expect for you to counter me like that."

"Such is the goal of chess." Tokoyami chimes in from his seat further down the table, where he had been clicking his beak in frustration over algebraic equations for the last half-hour. "To align your enemy's goals with your own so that he might march a path to their own destruction. And by all his engines be propelled directly to hell."

Iida blinked at the comment, as if he recognized something in it, but Izuku just smiled. Tokoyami was always dramatic, but it was never annoying. Usually it was just funny, and equally as usual was the fact that said funniness was wholly unintentional. The boy was just... amusing. Sometimes deliberately, typically not. And at other times...

"_I would send her forthwith to the depths of night, Midoriya..." _

_He had stood straight and proud, spine stiff like a ramrod and head cocked forwards, those round eyes gleaming in the moonlight. He had looked away from Izuku, staring up at the moon above, with Dark Shadow billowing all down his back and around his feet like a cloak of black on black, darkness within darkness. "But... by your request, I shall spare her the vengeance you so dearly deserve. We shall be as white knights this time, and save her from her captors."_

_Izuku smiled. He knew Tokoyami was better than that; he was a dark boy, but he was Gothic in the sense of the epic and ancient, not the cheap and tacky. The two were easily mistaken, but Tokoyami... _

_The boys supposed affectations of the macabre and occult were more than that. They were his real and legitimate identity, not a mask to conceal his true being. As potentially laughable as a quote such as 'mad banquet of darkness' was to most, to him it was simply a unique and fitting descriptor. His darker moods and lofty stoicism were not just cheap banter; he was as stoic as his attitude would have you believe, and as prone to dark thought as his methods of speech and motions would betray._

_And yet, for all this... he was a good person. He was kind, understanding better than most Izuku's struggle with One For All (or 'Superpower' as he knew it) and the danger inherent in a Quirk you can't fully control. He was polite, never disrespecting his friends and allies for the sake of anything like vanity or pride. And he was heroic. Exceptionally so._

"_However." _

_And there was the darker mood, the quiet, simmering fury inherent to Tokoyami in the face of injustice. The boy's head turned a touch, one eye focusing on Izuku, who stood behind him in this quiet clearing._

"_What she has done is a sin I cannot forget." Tokoyami spoke. "And what I cannot forget, I shall never forgive. I will not harm her, but should she ever try to hurt one of my few friends again, I will bring upon her all the fury of night and teach her to fear the dark."_

And so their 'covenant', as Tokoyami had named it then, was struck. When the time came and the word was given, Tokoyami would join his friend and the others who had already agreed to this plot, and they would save both Himiko Toga and the twin children of their mutual friend. It was a simple goal, and yet for some it seemed nigh unattainable. But Izuku…

Izuku had faith in his friends. All of them.

Especially Tokoyami.

"I was unaware you read quite so much old literature, Tokoyami," Iida interjected suddenly, the fingers on his right hand snapping as whatever it was he was thinking about came to him. "Joseph Conrad, I believe?"

"The Heart of Darkness." Tokoyami agreed. "A masterwork on the human soul, though perhaps touch too negative in its final theories. Dark Shadow does not care for it."

"Bo~~ring." the sentient Quirk opined, crow-like head emerging from within Tokoyami's own shadow to add its opinion. "Wasn't even scary or cool. Just depressing. Who wants to be depressed all the time?"

Tokoyami sighed in a sort of knowing way, as if he had been expecting this. Izuku just chuckled, before his eyes tracked up the common room wall toward the clock and he swallowed. Two-thirty. It was Saturday, of course, and raining outside to boot. Kirishima had audibly complained all morning about the weather, having planned a game of rugby among some of the other boys. Aizawa canceled it, declaring that they still had school on Monday and he wouldn't let them all catch colds.

Izuku had declined the offer to play before this though; he had another session with Miss Nynja at three. He had simply told Kirishima that he would likely be a little too busy with homework to play, however. The only people in U.A who knew about his therapy were the staff, Uraraka, Iida and possibly Shoji, though the boy had said nothing on the topic.

So Izuku said his farewells and made his way upstairs to grab his rain jacket, which he had kept folded up in his closet because honestly, it never seemed to rain at U.A. It was a deep forest green, because of course it was, but when he made his way downstairs, pulling on his shoes and jacket, he found himself with unexpected company.

"Deku."

Bakugo's grunt was the only greeting he received, and when Izuku smiled and countered with a 'hi Kacchan!' he received naught but a cold stare for his trouble. The two left the building at the same time, Bakugo's rain jacket being black because of course it was, and walked in silence together for some time.

"Deku."

Izuku's head perked up, and he looked over at Bakugo, who was not looking at him. His oldest friend was instead staring up at the school itself. His face was hidden by the hood of his jacket, but his voice was a strange deadpan, as if he were biting back his usual anger.

"I'm sorry."

The words came from out of nowhere, taking Izuku aback for a moment. Bakugo… apologizing? Was this real life? Was this a hallucination? Had Izuku passed out and fallen and hit his head? He looked around; everything else looked about the same. The rain was still falling, the grass was still green, U.A was still a vast glass and steel monolith looking high above them. The path beneath them was still grey cement, the flower gardens in front of the dorms still grew red and yellow and blue and white.

"Kacchan?" Izuku said, after a moment.

"I said I'm sorry." Bakugo replied, coming to a sudden halt and making Izuku do the same. A moment later, as if it were an afterthought: "Dipshit."

"I… what for?" Izuku asked after another moment of rapidly recalling things Bakugo may have done recently, and being a little surprised when nothing came to mind.

"For being a piece of shit." Bakugo was staring down at the cement, but his eyes slowly tracked up and met Izuku's own, green and red glinting off each other in the watery afternoon light. "For so long. And for never being able to admit it until now."

"Kacchan, you don't have to-" But Bakugo raises an open hand, and Izuku fell silent.

"Yes I do." he said. "Because I… fuck, this is harder than she said it would be. Because I fucked up. Over and over. And because you're too much of a moron to realize how bad I was. Or maybe you aren't but you're in denial or some shit, I don't know. But I need… I need to apologize."

She? Izuku almost wanted to ask, but Bakugo snapped his fingers and a tiny firecracker pop made him flinch away, eyes closing. Then Bakugo sighed, long and hard, and Izuku could feel the strain in his next words.

"That shit right there." Bakugo said, pointing at him. "That's what I'm fucking apologizing for. I… Deku, do you even realize how fucked up you are? For fuck's sake, I can't even look at you sideways without you flinching. I walk into a room and you tense up like your fucking fight or flight just got pinged. I walk towards you and it's like you start shrinking right in front of me. You…"

Bakugo's left hand suddenly clenched into a fist at his side and a series of popping sounds made Izuku flinch again, before his conscious mind caught up to the action and his eyes went wide.

"See?" There was an emotion in his friend's voice that didn't belong, a certain desperation, or perhaps just despair, something that certainly should not have been tainting the words of the cocksure Katsuki Bakugo. "That right fucking there."

His words trailed off, before he spoke aloud in a quivering voice that did not sound like Katsuki Bakugo.

"You… you're afraid of me."

Izuku looked up, and he saw another thing that didn't belong; there was something glistening in Bakugo's eyes, and his expression was twisted. It wasn't a smirk, or a frown, or a scowl; it was a look of mourning, or perhaps just plain old sorrow, tinged with realization, shame and just a hint of anguish. And Izuku was able to identify it so quickly, so easily, because he recognized it.

He saw it every morning in the bathroom mirror when he woke up from another nightmare about Toga that night. It was the same look of self-loathing that he stared at for ten minutes every morning, before carefully affixing his 'Hero That Can Do It' mask and smiling as though he meant it.

It didn't belong on Bakugo.

"Kacchan…" Izuku reached out a hand, touching Bakugo's shoulder. "I…"

"Don't you fucking dare forgive me." Bakugo shook his head. "That won't change shit. I can't… Deku, no, fuck that… _Izuku_, I hurt you! I hurt you as badly as that bitch did!"

Izuku took a step back, and Bakugo did the same, putting a little distance between them.

"Kacchan, that isn't true!"

"It is!"

"NO IT ISN'T!"

Izuku's retort would have echoed, were there walls to echo off of nearby. Instead it simply filled the air around them, fading as quickly as it had come, leaving Izuku to stare down his first friend and first enemy with narrowed green eyes.

"Kacchan, you hurt me."

The admission hurt to speak aloud. But if it hit Izuku like a punch in the gut, it seemed to strike Bakugo with the force of a sledgehammer. The blonde visibly winced, his face twisting from his angered scowl to a look of nauseated pain.

"You burned me, and you beat me, and there were times where you told me to… to kill myself." Izuku spoke each sin with a quavering voice he was only just keeping in control. "You did all of that. And that hurt. But the worst thing you ever did, the thing that hurt the most…"

Izuku closed his eyes and remembered.

"You betrayed me."

"_You should probably just give it up, kid."_

"_I'm sorry, Izuku!"_

"_You need to be realistic with your dreams."_

"After I found out I was Quirkless, everybody treated me differently." he began, taking a deep breath to brace himself. "Even my mom was… she didn't believe in me any more. She was too scared. And that hurt when I finally understood it. But… you…"

"_Get your hands off of me, Deku!"_

"You rejected me." he continued. "You turned your back on me. My first friend, the one who was going to be my partner as number one hero… you turned away. You pushed me away, you beat me and burned me and told me awful, horrible things, but none of it hurt as much as knowing that YOU were the one doing it all. The one who should have been there, the one who should have stayed by my side… you turned away and you let me suffer."

Bakugo was trembling now, and Izuku closed his eyes again.

"And I can't forgive you." he said, and he HEARD Bakugo's breath leave his body, that quiet gasp of pain. "Not yet. But I don't hate you either. I… I'm not big enough for that much hate. I never will be."

He opened his eyes again, and then took a step forward and grabbed Bakugo by both shoulders, his hood slipping off with the suddenness of his movement before he leaned in close.

"Thank you." he said. "For doing this. For letting yourself feel this, and for letting me see it. But please, Kacchan… please, never look at me like that again. Don't hate yourself. Never hate yourself."

_Hypocrite._

Bakugo stared at him for a long moment, before nodding. It wasn't a verbal affirmation, it wasn't even a grunt. But it was a start. Izuku let go of his friend, and took a step back again, only now realizing how close they'd been standing.

"I…" Bakugo hesitated. "I won't. But I will… I will earn your trust back. Somehow."

"Help me save them." Izuku replied. "That's all you have to do."


	20. In Which Toga Reflects

"The knife is too dull, dear Eliza dear Eliza. The knife is too dull, dear Eliza too dull!"

Himiko Toga had one hand on her abdomen and the other on her bed, the latter supporting her while the former slowly moved in a circle, gently massaging her swollen stomach. She couldn't believe how big she was getting, and so quickly too! The League didn't know anything about it, lacking a team scientist, but back in the police precinct she had heard one of the medical staff there talking about a side-effect of her Quirk that accelerated fetal progression, whatever that meant.

Toga didn't really care about such details; all she cared about was her babies. Her two precious little babies, safely stowed away inside her at the moment, but she could feel them kicking almost every day now. Chances were they were going to come out within the next few days, she figured. She giggled; it was so exciting! Soon her and Izuku's children would be born, and she could go and find him and make even more perfect, beautiful children!

Not before bloodying him up a little, of course. Her Izuku looked so cute when he was helpless and battered and weak and he couldn't leave her. The number of times she had looked over that footage from the end of his bout with the angry candy-cane boy at the U.A Sports Festival… well, she wasn't one to play and tell but there was much enjoyment derived from that particular video in her case. It was what had first brought her Izuku to her attention again, reminding her of that first taste of blood, the first face she'd ever stolen…

The first time she'd ever really felt alive.

And now their babies were coming! Oh, this was just too good! Sure Shigaraki was being super lame with his whole jealousy shtick but that was his problem; Izuku was hers. Not Shigaraki's, not U.A's, not All Might's. Hers. Hers to play with, hers to love and use and cuddle and break all at her own leisure. She held her stomach in both hands now, head bent low as she sang softly to her Izuku's children. It was an old nursery rhyme, German she thought? Hard to say for certain, and harder still to care.

"Then sharpen it dear Henry, dear Henry, dear Henry. Then sharpen it dear Henry, dear Henry sharpen it!"

She blinked. Was that how it went? It had been a long time since she'd last heard it, before mama and papa took her to the doctor's office to see if she had a Quirk at all. Before mama had forgotten her at the doctor's office, and papa had come to pick her up half an hour later. Before she had handed them her test results with tiny, shivering hands already afraid of their response.

Before mama and papa knew their daughter was a monster.

She could feel the twins start to move around, her stomach aching as one of them kicked as if caught in a nightmare. She quickly moved her thoughts away from her dumb mama and papa; they ruined everything whenever she gave them a thought, and instead focused on the most important thing in her life.

"Don't worry…" she whispered down to her Izuku's babies, a soft smile on her face. "Nobody will ever hurt you. I'll hurt them first. And then I'll kill them. So sleep tight!"

She rubbed her stomach until the two calmed down, hopefully settling back down to sleep. Toga took that chance to look around the room a little. She was quite cold, she noted, though she had forgotten in her excitement about the twins being so active. She was in a concrete cell somewhere, with a heavy metal door set in the wall to her left and no windows or vents beside. Just a quarter-inch gap between the bottom of the door and the floor, which gave her air and allowed the League to slide food in for her.

Well, when they remembered. That was a little annoying; she was eating for three, after all! She'd have to stab the one in charge of food then.

Unless it was Twice. He probably just forgot, and that was okay. He had problems, but he was also the only one to congratulate her on being a mother when she was first taken by the League, so he was okay in her books. Dabi was still kind of weird about everything, and she barely saw him. Mr. Compress had promised to put on a show for the twins one day, though she knew he was hiding tears when he said so. What a crybaby, he didn't need to hide his happiness from her! Shigaraki had come into the room a couple of times a week at first to try and act all scary, but she had ignored him.

Kurogiri though…

Kurogiri had been strange.

She'd never thought much of the League's surrogate dad. He was nice enough, she had supposed, in a distant and polite sort of way. She only called him the surrogate dad because Shigaraki was more like the angsty big brother and All For One was like their scary ultra-powerful grandfather. Kurogiri, though, he was the one who cared. He made sure to mix all of Twice's drinks so they were perfectly split between two primary ingredients, and had removed a few decorative items with two many intermingling patterns that made the man's head hurt, for two examples.

He was also the one who recovered burn cream for Dabi, some powerful ointment from South America that was able to actually ease the arsonist's endless pain. He and Compress would share stories of past heists and tales of old criminal exploits in the Golden Age of Villains before All-Might's first defeat of All For One. He would even acquire blood for Toga, bags of it from hospitals that helped sate her appetite for a little and kept her focused.

He had also sat with Toga a couple of times to talk. Not to threaten or interrogate, just to talk. Did she have any cravings at the moment, particular foods he could acquire to feed them? Did she understand the importance of her posture while pregnant, particularly if she didn't want to stress the children? Had she given any thought to names? He had seemed legitimately curious, his advice given seemingly in good faith and a genuine desire to see her Izuku's babies stay healthy and safe.

The two new people she barely knew anything about. Firefly was kinda hyper and weird when she saw him, and Darkstar… Darkstar was just plain creepy. Faceless, wrapped up in that rubber getup and carrying around that ornament on her back… Toga was pretty sure she was like her though. She knew the body language of a predator, and Darkstar walked like a lioness looking for its favoured prey.

"Ooo, I should write that one down." she murmured, before remembering her surroundings. "Oh. Right."

Her threadbare cot wasn't the most comfortable thing, but it was better than the icy floor of the cell. She wasn't certain they were refrigerating her quarters, but she was also pretty sure that the hideout's heating didn't extend down here. She shivered a little, rubbing her stomach just a little harder. Her toes were turning a pale blue, but that was okay. She had her only blanket bundled up around her middle, as well as the dirty old shirt they'd thrown her. She was naked besides, but so long as the twins stayed warm it was okay.

Her arm was quite sore from all the rubbing, and she couldn't actually feel her feet, but she didn't care. Her Izuku's babies had to be protected at all costs. They were going to grow up big and strong and have powerful Quirks and she would love them and hold them and teach them how to fight and how to kill so nobody could ever hurt them. And she wouldn't drink or snort or inject anything like mama had, she would be a good mama. And Izuku would never hit them like papa did, he would be a good papa. She'd never break their toys, or lock them in the box in the basement, and Izuku would never put out any cigarettes in their arms and backs or make them sleep in his bed and do awful things to them.

They would grow up and be happy and she could finally have her Izuku to herself and they could be happy together forever.

She could finally be happy, with the only person who ever cared about her.

She sniffled a little, bit from the cold but from a sudden rush of emotion. She was scared. Just a little. She wanted her Izuku. She needed him. She needed his puppy eyes and his smile and his strong arms that held her so tightly when he loved her. She needed them more than anything else right now.

But she couldn't have him. That stupid hero took him away. Eraserhead, and those other ones too, the ones that found her and pulled her away from her beloved Izuku. The ones that made him cry as she was dragged off. She would kill them. Eraserhead first, she'd put a knife in each of those gross red eyes and then she'd slit his throat and make him smile bright and bloody red. Then the other ones, she'd cut them up and take off their hands so they could never touch her again, never drag her away from her Izuku.

Her hands trembled, in part from the cold and in part from her anger and sadness and fear all mixing together. She tucked her head against her chest and let out a feral, pained sound, the same quiet whine that she used to let out when papa finished with her and kicked her out of his room. She wasn't allowed to cry then, or he'd hear and get mad. So she would curl up on her little cushion on the floor and bite back everything, the tears and the cries and the screaming, and she'd compress it all down into a single short, sharp whine like that one.

Papa couldn't hear those sounds.

But now the twins could.

She felt one kick, and her eyes went wide when she felt something else. Something much scarier, a wetness around her thighs and an unimaginably painful surge of something in her stomach and she _screamed._

The door swung open instantly, Mr. Compress staring at her for a moment before turning and shouting something she couldn't hear down the hallway outside, as the pain surged again. Tears flooded her eyes, but they weren't sad. They weren't angry. They weren't afraid.

Her Izuku's babies were here.

And that meant he would be here soon.


	21. In Which Aizawa Sees The Future

It was happening.

Tokoyami was the first to emerge, tall and imperial in aspect, eyes narrowed just a touch and black cloak billowing about him. To his back Dark Shadow loomed vast and powerful, an eldritch being of dark and terrible fury, surrounded by an aura of that otherworldly anger. Tokoyami, meanwhile, was quite the opposite; his regality was touched with a hint of impassive arrogance, but it was clear to any who knew him that he was quite ready to step up and fight if the need arose… and it was equally clear that he fully expected such an outcome.

After him followed Todoroki, heterochromatic eyes blazing with a passion unmatched by any prior emotion he had displayed. His usual cool detachment was gone, dead, and he had killed it with fire and frostbite, emerging instead with a quiet, yet passionate scowl that spoke to his dedication to the mission. He was holding it back of course, buried under a mile and a half of permafrost-calm, slowly weathering away. It was only a matter of time before it all burst forth in an eruption; but for now he would keep it in check.

Behind him walked, or perhaps stalked, Bakugo. Clad in the blacks and oranges and dull military greens of his hero costume he strode out of U.A as a man on the hunt would, eyes slowly tracking back and forth over the road outside. He was not exploding for once, his hands clean of nitroglycerin; he was storing it up, ready to unleash his righteous fury upon his foes the moment the time came. His expression, however… he was in his element. The impending violence had him on a sort of high, his smile as gleeful as it was merciless. He was out for blood tonight, that much was clear.

Shota Aizawa watched his three students walk out in a staggered line, but when they assembled together they stood side by side as if they had been marching in lockstep all along. The military precision was almost admirable, and for a moment Aizawa wondered if they had rehearsed this. He watched and then nodded once, his eyes already covered by his slotted yellow goggles and his capture tool hung loose around his neck. He felt for his gear; the knife slotted on one thigh, the shorter blade tucked away in his left boot, the throwing daggers on his left hip and his newest toy, a little piece of updated antiquity Power Loader had whipped up for him, stowed on his right. He counted each weapon in turn, and found he could breathe a little easier knowing they were all present and accounted for.

Beside him Snipe was counting bullets, whispering a name for each as he loaded them. An red round was loaded for Kurogiri, an orange for Twice, yellow for Toga, a grey for Shigaraki, blue for Dabi and finally, with a last whisper, a curious green-tipped bullet Aizawa had never seen before, accompanied by the words 'to whom it may concern'. The low light from the nearby lamp reflected off the left lense of his iconic gasmask as he looked up, watching the three approach with his expression hidden behind the leather and metal and tinted glass.

"Are we gonna fucking do this, or what?" Bakugo had a scowl on his face as he growled the question, before he saw Aizawa raise a finger and fell silent.

There was a moment of tense quiet, before Dark Shadow let out a quiet sound that was somewhere between a warble and a laugh as Izuku Midoriya stepped out through the gate behind them.

It took everybody a moment or two to figure out exactly what was different about him; at first it seemed like nothing, until Todoroki saw first. Izuku wasn't smiling. At least, he probably wasn't. It was hard to say because he had covered the lower half of his face with his rebreather mask. If Todoroki was being completely honest, he had forgotten that it wasn't just an armoured collar of some kind, but there it was, covering his face from nose to chin and hiding what was usually an expression of either reassuring calm or quiet determination. Now there was only dulled grey metal, pocked with tiny holes, and the quiet rasp of filtered air as he breathed. Emerald eyes stared out at the students and teachers, burning with a dark determination the likes of which none of them had seen from Midoriya before.

That rasping cycle of inhale, exhale, inhale again filled the quiet for a time, before he finally spoke.

"Yes, Kacchan, we're going to do this." Izuku said, looking over the five assembled heroes. The mask muffled his voice, and changed it just a little, pitched it a little deeper. "We're going to get Toga, save... save my children..."

A moment of silence, and another quiet rasp as Izuku sighed. His shoulders seemed to droop a little, his gaze falling toward the pavement beneath them before he clenched his fists, closed his eyes and took a long breath.

"And we're going to put the League of Villains back in their place." he finished, eyes opening again once he had turned his gaze upwards once more

"And kick some ass?" Dark Shadow rumbled.

"That too." Izuku nodded. "So…"

He looked at each of them in turn. Tokoyami bowed his head, Dark Shadow behind him clapping clenched fists together with another warbling cackle. Todoroki just nodded. Bakugo grinned, a savage and manic thing. Aizawa stared back, and Snipe just holstered his revolver and raised two fingers to his brow in a sort of salute.

"Are you ready?"

It was a simple question, really. Three words that should have been easy to respond to, but of the six assembled heroes, five took a moment to consider it. Tokoyami pondered the question with a click of his beak and glanced towards the night sky before nodding again, assured of his mission. Aizawa didn't give away any sort of outwards expression of thought, but Izuku had learned what that slight dip of his shoulders meant. Snipe rubbed the butt of his revolver with his right hand before inclining his head a touch. Todoroki let out a breath that fogged in the cool air, left eye narrowing a little while the right stayed wide open. Bakugo, however...

"Ready." Bakugo declared, clapping his gauntlets together with a quiet crashing sound. "So, where the fuck are we headed?"

"Unto the heart of darkness, I assume." Tokoyami interjected. "And what shall be our strategy when we arrive?"

Snipe leaned in then, one hand braced on the butt of his revolver and the other raised to hold up a disposable burner-phone to their eyes. He opened it with a press of a button and showed them all a text from an unknown number.

_324 Bespin. Come alone. _

"That's the meeting place Midoriya's supposed to head to." Snipe drawled, placing the phone in Midoriya's hand. All present heard the plastic of its shell creak in his grip for a moment, before his hand loosened just a touch as he became aware of his own strength.

"Abandoned warehouse." Snipe continued, after Midoriya took a deep breath. "Nedzu did us a quick favour, already scoped the place out with a drone. It's isolated, empty and legally foreclosed. Has been for somethin' 'round a year now. Probably a popular hideout for villains of all sorts, but I get the feeling we ain't going to be seeing much company."

"The plan is simple." Aizawa interjected, stepping forward. "We split into two teams. Tokoyami is with me as Team A."

Tokoyami crossed his arms, while Dark Shadow once again laughed, a sickening sound to the ear.

"Todoroki goes with Roku as Team B." Todoroki and Snipe shared a glance, and though nothing was said aloud both knew just what the other meant to communicate. "Midoriya and Bakugo are Team C."

Bakugo, in a strange display of affection, placed a hand on Izuku's shoulder. Much to his credit, Izuku didn't so much as flinch, though did look a little surprised. Bakugo just grunted, before squeezing his oldest friend's shoulder. Some of the tension in Izuku seemed to fade at that, his posture losing a hint of stiffness while his eyes closed.

"Midoriya will make first contact, while Bakugo maintains his distance alongside Team A." The blonde grunted with dissatisfaction at that, but he said nothing. "Team B will be providing ranged support and field control; Todoroki, you need to shut down their escape routes."

"It may be loud." Todoroki warned, and Aizawa nodded.

"The police and other pros will be forming a cordon, with the Backdraft agency on standby to manage any collateral from Dabi, or… others." he declared, looking pointedly at Bakugo and Todoroki.

"Oh fuck you, I never leave collateral!" Bakugo interjected, Snipe faking a cough in the name of poorly concealing his laughter. "What the fuck are you laughing at… fuckin'..."

Aizawa snapped his fingers, cutting off Bakugo's internal search for a decent insult.

"Which pros do we have on standby?" Todoroki asked, the unspoken question involving his father still heard by all.

"Kamui Woods will be staying clear due to the nature of Dabi's Quirk," Aizawa said, before looking at Todoroki. "But Mountain Lady, Death Arms, Thirteen and Gappy will all be in reserve. We estimate the League to have ten members total at the moment, but we're only expecting seven to arrive for tonight. That means they have a numerical advantage, but we have the element of surprise on our side. I know for a fact all of you understand how important that is."

"How could we forget?" Bakugo asked. "You never fucking shut up about it."

He looked at each of them in turn, his eyes flashing red under his goggles as he did so. He looked tired, frustrated… but ready. He had to be. Then he realized, if not to his surprise, that each of his students looked ready as well. For a moment, he felt something prick at his eyes, which he repressed with brutal spontaneity. There was no time for tears. Not now. But perhaps there was time for something else.

"Whatever happens," he said, looking at Todoroki, Midoriya and Tokoyami one at a time. "I want you all to understand something."

He placed one hand on Tokoyami's left shoulder, one on Bakugo's right, and leaned in to be nearer to all three of them, particularly Midoriya in the middle of the two. They all stared at him, curious or confused or in the case of Bakugo mildly irritated, but they all met his eyes, and he sighed. His head dropped, eyes closing as he focused on gathering his words for what he had to say next.

"I had my doubts about each of you when you first stepped into that entry exam, and those doubts persisted for a long time." he admitted. "Bakugo was impetuous and irritatingly self-obsessed. Tokoyami was far too introverted and almost impossible to speak to. And you, Midoriya…"

He looked up then, meeting the green eyes of his problem child. They were watering already, because of course they were.

"You were an enigma." Aizawa continued. "You were Quirkless, seemingly, and then you levelled a robot the size of a building in a single punch. You were so self-aware and jumpy I thought for a time you might have been abused as a child."

Izuku winced, and Bakugo's grin faded for a moment. Todoroki's eyes burned for a moment, that buried anger flaring to the surface for a moment. Tokoyami just closed his eyes, breathing out slowly.

"You had the most tenacity and conviction of any of your classmates in that first practice battle," Aizawa resumed with a single glance at Bakugo, who looked strangely ashamed. "You fought like a devil at the USJ. You destroyed your own body over and over just to prove something to someone. You made no sense."

He looked back to Bakugo, who met his gaze with a stubborn eye.

"You hated him." he spoke the words with conviction, and Bakugo said nothing to retort. "You thought you were better than him. But time passed, and you saw how far he had come and suddenly you were jealous. You were diametrically opposed to him in everything, because you felt you had to be. And now…"

He looked between the two. Bakugo and Midoriya. Katsuki and Izuku. Kacchan and Deku. They had reconciled, it seemed, or at the very least come closer than they were before. The fact that Bakugo's hand was still firmly on Izuku's shoulder was testament to that fact, as was the look of calm on his face now.

"Now you're doing this together. You've both come far since you first began."

He looked at all three of them again.

"All of you have." he said, eyes turning to Todoroki, who was staring him down with that same cool disposition he always had, only the faintest shadow of a smile betraying his feelings.

It was a strangely nostalgic thing, though what he was remembering that made him nostalgic simply should not have. He saw for a moment these four replaced by four very different youths, each a couple years older; Kozaky and Rin and Chihiro and Hitokiri, each wearing their own hero costumes and staring at him as he handed them their official licenses. He saw others as well, who didn't make it, the tear-stained faces of Ishizu and Issho and Dai and all the others he had been forced to reject.

But these four were not Ishizu, or Issho, or Dai. They were Fumikage Tokoyami, Shouto Todoroki, Katsuki Bakugou and Izuku Midoriya. They were his students now. The next generation. His dark child, his quiet child, his angry child and his problem child. He would never call any of them his favourites, he wasn't biased like that. But he would call them the most promising of class 1-A, and he would do so without shame or doubt.

They were Tsukuyomi, Shouto, Ground Zero and Deku. They were the future.

"I'm proud of each of you." Aizawa declared, and for a moment he let his own posture slump, his voice dropping a few octaves to a whisper. "No matter what comes next, remember that."

"We shall." Tokoyami declared, bowing his head. "But fear not; none of us shall fall today. Victory belongs to us. It is what is owed."

"Fuck yeah." Bakugo punched his classmate's shoulder, before grinning again, a predator on the brink of the feast. "Let's go fuck some assholes up."

"Time?" Snipe asked, and Midoriya checked the bulky wristwatch he'd added to his costume for just this occasion, Shouto peering over his shoulder in that ominous manner Aizawa didn't think he knew was creepy.

Aizawa bit back a traitorously fond chuckle and instead feigned a sigh at their antics. The future indeed. These four were still teens

"Nine-thirty." Izuku said, before looking up, green eyes meeting Aizawa's brown. There it was again, that determination, that conviction as hard as steel. "And sensei… we won't let you down."

_I know,_ Aizawa wanted to say.

Instead he nodded.

"Let's move."

**Proofread and Edited (And basically co-written) by Unsettling-A.I.R**


	22. In Which A Gentle Man Is Angered

I'm_ proud of each of you. No matter what comes next, remember that._

Izuku Midoriya pondered his teacher's words as he entered 314 Bespin, a large industrial warehouse close enough to the city centre to be surrounded by other buildings like it, yet far enough away that the distant sounds of the city sounded like they were another world away. The sound worried him regardless and his expression darkened into a faint frown. He was thankful the expression was hidden by the metal of his rebreather. He knew that the League wouldn't hesitate to kill innocent people in the name of hurting him.

To his left loomed Dabi. He knew it was him from the laboured cadence of the taller man's breath, the way his silhouette slouched as he leaned against a concrete support beam. To his right was Mr. Compress, the straight backed posture and cane equally telling even in the gloom of the warehouse, though the stillness was perhaps a touch out of character for the typically exuberant villain. The yawning roof and general emptiness of the building meant that Izuku's every footstep echoed, the metal plates on the bottoms of his boots producing a heavy _clank _with every step taken. He paid it no mind, focusing instead on the enemies around him.

Shigaraki stood opposite to him, as was natural. He looked virtually ecstatic, cracked dry lips twisted in a hideous smile that promised all measure of pain in the minutes, hours and days to come. His eyes were shining with a mad sort of glee, sadistic and cunning in equal measure. He was wearing all of his hands, along his arms and neck and the one over his face, connected by those pale cords. His hair was wild, a mop of grey with errant locks jutting in all directions. And beside him… Toga. She was naked, and the sight made Izuku scowl under the mask. A blatant attempt at a psychological weapon, trying to trigger a flashback so he was stunned. He stared, and remembered Miss Nyanja's words from their last session.

"_I know it may be too soon to discuss your fears, but given that you mentioned the topic…" _

_She smiled at him, leaning back a little in her chair so she could access one of its many small drawers built into the sides of her desk. Her hand searched inside one for a moment, before emerging with a small notebook, which she flipped open with a flick of the wrist. It was a plain spiral-bound thing, fifty sheets of loosely bound blue-lined paper, each sheet about the size of a playing card. She gently slid it toward him along the desk's surface, and with her other hand placed a pencil atop it. _

"_I won't make you talk about them." she promised. "But non-verbal acknowledgement of uncertainties and phobias can be an effective way to first begin dealing with them. If you would like to write any of them down, I'll look over them after you give me the notebook."_

_Izuku stared at her for a moment, placing a scarred hand atop the notebook, and then picked up the pencil with the other._

"_What if… what if I don't want to give you the notebook?" he asked, a little nervous, and she smiled again in that reassuring way. _

"_Then your fears are yours to keep," she replied, eyes glimmering with a strange kindness that was as familiar as it was mysterious. "And that's okay. Sometimes all it takes is acknowledging a fear. For some, that's the only step they need to take."_

Izuku knew the notebook was still tucked away in his desk back in his dormitory. He hadn't shown it to her. He hadn't shown it to anybody. But Toga wasn't in that notebook. However, Toga dying, Toga being hurt, all just to hurt him… they were. Perhaps that wasn't normal. She had hurt him. Taken from him one of the most precious things in his life. But he couldn't hate her. He wasn't sure he had any room in him left to hate anybody else.

He took a breath. Focused. This wasn't the time for introspection. That could come later, if it needed to come at all. For now.

He took a second look, this time focusing less on the blatant psychological manipulation and more so on the state of the girl he was here to rescue. And when he did, he found his hands unconsciously adopting the shapes of fists, trembling slightly at the ends of his arms. He only noticed when he heard the creak of leather.

She was much thinner than she had been before, far too thin. Her skin was paler, an almost translucent white, and her yellow eyes, usually so manic and energetic, were half lidded and dull. Either she was drugged, or more likely just unimaginably fatigued. And if she had given birth only a few days ago… Izuku's temper flared. The leather creaked again, louder, and he took a short, sharp breath.

"Shigaraki." He spoke the name as a challenge, voice changed slightly by the rebreather to be a little lower pitched. He could see Compress flinch from the corner of his eye, but Shigaraki's smile only widened in response.

"Deku." Shigaraki spoke the name as a curse, or perhaps the punchline of a joke. He had one hand wrapped around the back of Toga's neck, his pinky finger raised to prevent her from turning to dust in his grip.

Izuku froze when he saw that. Shigaraki clearly noticed his hesitation, that finger dancing back and forth a little as if to taunt him. He ignored the villain's childish games for now; his eyes roamed over the warehouse, scanning the many shadows, but he couldn't see the babies yet. He couldn't see Kurogiri or Twice either, nor the two new members Aizawa had warned him about. Kurogiri could be anywhere, and Twice could have surrounded the building with clones. No, if he had they would have spotted Bakugo lurking in the shadows of the building opposite to this one. Izuku shook his head, focusing again. He had to keep moving.

"Give me Toga, and the twins." Izuku commanded, and Shigaraki only laughed in response, which sounded more like a dry cough.

"What twins?" he asked, with a horrific sort of glee in his voice, and Izuku's stomach sunk suddenly as Shigaraki shook his head. "This impudent little _shit_-"

Shigaraki cut himself off by throwing Toga to the ground in front of him. She was weak, that much was clear, barely able to pull herself to her hands and knees before Shigaraki stomped down on her left ankle. Toga screamed as it gave way with a horrific snapping sound, one uncomfortably familiar to Izuku. A major break, then, compound fracture like as not. He swallowed, biting back the anger that was building under his skin. He'd have to carry her out when the time came.

"Couldn't even make a couple of babies right." Shigaraki continued, red eyes boring into Izuku's green from behind that awful severed hand covering his face. "You've got one kid. The other was already dead!"

Shigaraki burst into laughter, as if he had just finished some great joke. It was a maddened cackling that sounded like breaking glass, but Izuku wasn't focusing on that. He was focusing on not throwing up, pushing the nausea in his stomach down as his body unconsciously lit up with One For All's power. Lines of red light built along his skin, shining through the green of his hero suit and climbing up to his neck and face. Green lightning built in a corona around him, a halo of emerald electricity that smelled of ozone and smoke. It danced slowly, gently, but occasionally a tendril would ground itself in the concrete below with a quiet _crack _like thunder.

Dead. One of the babies was dead. One of his children was dead. Toga and the other were alive, he could still save them. He could still save them. _It was too late. _He could still save them. They didn't have to die. He wouldn't let them die. He couldn't. He had to save them. But first, he had a promise to keep.

"Then the deal is off."

His voice was quiet, but his conviction, the barely restrained volcanic rage building and building and **building **inside... Shigaraki's laughter came to a sudden pause, his head turning back down to goggle at Izuku taking a single step forward, fists clenched and eyes afire with verdant flame. The two stared each other down for a long moment, the mocking mirth in the villain's eyes fading away and leaving behind naught but that red rage and madness.

"What deal?" Shigaraki asked, reaching down with a hand to grab at Toga, one finger raised higher than the rest. "There was never a deal, hero! You came here, and now I kill you! That's the deal! _And_ I get your cute little byblow to train up as a nice little bonus! I get a fresh companion and you die! Game over!"

"Wrong." Izuku's voice was a growl now, anger putting a certain timbre in the words that had been missing before, and giving that steely conviction a sharp, threatening edge. "The deal was that if all three of them were here, we'd arrest you. But I made a promise."

"Oy, you made a promise?" Shigaraki had Toga by the neck again, his eyes glimmering dangerously. "What kind? To save her?"

At that moment, Shigaraki's expression cracked. The mirth disappeared, the taunting smile fell from his lips, that sadistic joy vanished from his gaze. He didn't step back, much to his credit, but Izuku could hear Dabi and Compress' shoes scraping on the cement as he let his true intent be felt. He didn't learn this from U.A, nor from All Might. This was a lesson from Stain…. Or perhaps it was a gift.

In that moment a wave of killing intent flooded the warehouse, and all present understood, Shigaraki more so than his henchmen. The ice cold touch of true fear trickled down his spine, and his stance stiffened as his most natural instincts screamed at him to run or to fight or to die.

Izuku Midoriya was no longer here to save anybody. He was here for blood.

"To put you down."

Izuku wasn't sure how much of One For All's power he had tapped into at this point. At least nine percent, probably more. His anger, his sorrow, his fear and his hate, all of them were driving up his limitations, forcing his body to accept more and more of that fire. It almost hurt, his skin straining and muscles burning. All he knew was that when his whole body surged into motion after he finished that fourth word, there was maybe a millisecond's time before his left heel impacted Shigaraki's upraised finger with all the force he could muster, the wind-pressure from his kick nearly knocking the villain over.

The finger snapped like a twig under a speeding car, bending so far backward the fingernail touched against the back of Shigaraki's hand. The villain screamed, his other fingers unconsciously releasing his grip, and once Izuku had finished the spin from his kick he brought his other foot around and slammed it into Shigaraki's stomach so hard he could feel something presumably important break, likely a rib or six.

Shigaraki flew like an eagle for a moment, before crashing down to the unforgiving cement of the warehouse floor with all the grace of a car crash. Izuku could hear Dabi and Compress moving, but he could also see that the light of One For All made him much harder to look at. They were used to the gloom of the warehouse this late at night; the light he was engulfed by was blindingly bright in comparison.

Toga whimpered when he reached down to grab her, but when she looked up and saw him her expression shifted from fear to something far more hopeful. Izuku wasn't sure if he could smile, and his mouth was covered anyways, so he just nodded as he slid his arms under her and went to pull her onto his back in a fireman's carry.

Then he heard an ominous snap and hiss, a wave of heat blew over him and he jumped back and into the air, Toga still in his arms. The split-second reaction allowed him to narrowly dodge an enormous burst of blue fire that filled the air he had previously occupied. Toga let out a gasp of pain at the way the sudden movement jostled her broken ankle, but Izuku couldn't do anything to fix that at the moment. All he could do was wait and hope the noise of the attack had drawn the attention of the right people.

From outside the warehouse, he heard the familiar sound of Snipe's six-shooter followed shortly by an even louder explosion and a scream of pain. The doors of the warehouse were blown inwards by a huge detonation before Bakugo stalked inside, hands crackling with tiny blasts and eyes murderously narrow as he looked all around.

"Who's first, fucknobs?!" he bellowed, seeing Compress and raising a hand. "I'll blow all of you fuckers away!"

"Kacchan…" Izuku whispered, unimaginably happy to see his friend here with him.

He touched down nearer to one of the building's far corners, away from the door and Shigaraki's crumpled form and the brawl taking place between Compress, Dabi and Bakugo. He dropped down to his knees and laid Toga down on the floor as gently as he could manage. She looked almost delirious, and the way the skin of her stomach clung to her ribs made him wince a little. She reached up with a thin, malnourished hand and grasped at his arm, holding him with a weak grip.

"My… Izuku…" she murmured, and Izuku shushed her as gently as he could manage. "Raki…lying..."

That gave Izuku reason to pause, and he stopped his examination of her ankle to look at her eyes again. Yellow, their usual glint of dangerous intelligence dulled by pain, hunger and something else, but she was smiling at him and it showed in those eyes. She was happy, genuinely happy, as if she had been waiting for him. She looked hopeful, the same way…

The same way Izuku looked, when he saw All Might.

"What was Shigaraki lying about?" he asked, hurriedly pulling the small first aid kit he kept on his belt free to try and jury rig a splint for her ankle.

"Babies… beautiful, both…" she murmured. "No dying… 'Giri has… both… beautiful babies… so cute…"

Izuku didn't freeze this time, but that yawning pit in his stomach closed with a snap and tears of relief flooded his eyes. They… they were alive. Both of them. He hadn't lost one, they were both alive. But Kurogiri had them, and that meant they could be anywhere. He'd have to find them… but first he had to get Toga out of here. His reverie was cut short by another explosion that lit up the room, accompanied by a murderous howl of some English curse word Bakugo had almost definitely learned from a song.

He had to get her out of here.

He heard more gunfire, likely the sound of Snipe battling somebody outside. His money was on Twice, personally. One of the windows up high on the warehouse wall exploded inwards, and a dark shape descended on the centre of the floor, scarf fluttering a little as Aizawa touched down with a graceful shoulder roll to disperse his own momentum, rising to his feet with one hand dropping down to his left hip. Izuku went to call out, but his voice died when he heard movement to his left.

Rubber creaked a little as the shape of a woman emerged from the darkness behind a stack of crates to his right, where she had evidently been hiding until now. Izuku felt a strangely familiar sensation wash over him as she passed by, seemingly ignoring both himself and Toga in favour of staring down Aizawa. At least, that was what he assumed, given that her head was covered by a strange featureless helmet that disguised any and all expression. Izuku positioned himself over Toga, ready to lunge at the woman, but she didn't even spare them a passing glance.

Izuku weighed his options with narrowed eyes. He could try and fight this unknown target, or he could retreat with Toga and make a break for it. Either was a valid option, he believed, but did he dare risk her life to challenge an opponent he knew nothing about?

His hesitation lasted only a moment, before he lunged at the woman. It only took a moment more before he realized something; One For All wasn't triggering. It was a sensation similar to the one Aizawa invoked in him when he used his Erasure. Izuku had always failed to notice his Quirk being erased before; he was just so used to not having one that even after almost a full year with One For All it still felt more familiar to lack then to possess.

The woman shifted aside, his punch going wide, before one of her legs came up and slammed into his stomach, making him gasp for air when it was all catapulted from his lungs at the sudden impact. It wasn't quite as bad as a gut-shot from Mirio, but it still hurt quite a bit. He dropped down, gasping, and rolled to the side in expectation of a follow-up attack. But the woman was just standing there, head shaking slightly.

"Not your dance, little rabbit." she said, her voice strangely melodic. "Go take care of your partner and I'll go dance with mine, okay?"

Izuku wretched again, and she giggled like a schoolgirl for a moment.

"You are cute…" she said, as if admitting it nervously, before looking back over her shoulder at Aizawa, who was moving toward the fight between Bakugo and Dabi. "But… Aizawa-sensei probably misses me."

**Proofread and Edited with assistance from Unsettling-A.I.R**


	23. In Which Aizawa Remembers

"I want to play with Aizawa-Sensei..."

The woman's voice was a saccharine coo, disgustingly sweet, thick like syrup as it dribbled into his ears. Aizawa couldn't help but shudder in spite of himself, due in part to his anger and in part to the confused agitation he felt. There was some sort of familiarity here, he knew that voice. Yet another part of him screamed in the depths of his mind, subdued and distant, something felt off, wrong, unnatural and strange. He continued to stare at the figure before him, feeling a sickly sensation like bile rising in his throat, choking him from within.

It was a woman, there was no doubt about that, a female form taken and shrink-wrapped in rubber as some kind of fetishized parody of a hero or villain. And yet... the rubber didn't glisten like the sorts of outfits Midnight wore to special events and galas when she felt like stirring up some tabloid controversy. It was dull, almost matte, like nitrile rather than latex with only the faintest shine to hint at its synthetic nature. The sexualization was clearly secondary to the functionality of the whole affair, if the strangely utilitarian design of the pouch-covered belt or armoured shoulders was any indication.

And yet there _was_ a blatant, disconcerting sexuality in it; each breast individually pocketed in a way that drew the untamed eye but left the sternum blatantly open to strike, the rear wedged tight between the cheeks of the posterior to once again distract. There were no heels, but the outfit took the opposite approach in that each toe was separately sheathed. And even in these details there was purpose; the metal outlining the chest dipped between the breasts, armouring the sternum in steel. The rear was tight all the way around, but clearly flexible with how the woman was able to bend and twist as she circled him. And the footwear was, for its bizarre design, seemingly practical with denser rubberized soles and a proper gripping tread.

It was a strange appearance, to be sure. The head was where things changed; the rubber gave way to a helmet, smooth and round and almost vantablack with how dark it was, without a visible visor or holes for eyes. It rendered the head a strange smooth thing on all sides, a capsule of sorts, with no defined face or crown or back. And it turned and followed his movements when he slipped to one side, and he narrowed his eyes. Perhaps the material was treated in some way; opaque on the outside, transparent within? There was a strange circular metal ornament on her back, two thin crescent shapes crossed over one another at the middle of her back. What purpose that served he couldn't say.

Still, he felt sick to his stomach as he stared. Something was wrong, very clearly wrong, something was happening that he hadn't accounted for. He continued to stare at her, hands slowly inching up towards his capture weapon, pulling it loose and readying it to throw. Her head inclined a little towards him, as if acknowledging his action, her hands reaching over her shoulders towards that strange circular ornament on her back, grabbing two handles previously unseen and pulling it into two halves. Not an ornament, he realized, as the wickedly curved blades glinted in the moonlight. Swords, two of them, beautifully crafted, like two long, narrow crescent moons of steel with a handle near one end each.

She brandished them, pointing them at him, and Aizawa swallowed, waiting for the Quirk. She didn't seem particularly mutated, so it was either Transformation or Emitter. Given her choice of dress Transformation was unlikely, so Emitter was the most likely. And yet... she giggled once, then twice, a peal of tittering little laughs escaping her, and Aizawa stared and waited, sick to his stomach, ignoring the ache behind his eyes and the sensation of wrongness, of something being so different and not-right it demanded immediate correction.

Was this her Quirk? Some sort of projected radius or sight activated trigger of nausea and discomfort? Aizawa had seen a few Quirks like that before, though none quite this pervasive and disturbing. Perhaps it was intensified by his own strange sense of familiarity with the villain? But that made no sense either; he didn't know her. He'd never seen her before in his life, he would have remembered such weapons and garb as these, if not for the aesthetic than at least for the sheer bizarreness of it all.

"Aizawa-Sensei..." she cooed, stepping closer to him, swords at her sides now. "Don't you wanna play with me?"

A step forward, another step, those rubber-wrapped feet padding softly across the floor. It wasn't so much a walk as a strut, hips swinging, shoulders held perfectly still. Aizawa narrowed his eyes beneath his goggles, and then froze again, shock setting him rigid and that nausea deepening and turning to a black pit of dread in his stomach as he realized just what was so utterly wrong about all of this.

His Quirk wouldn't activate.

The woman giggled at his expression, the excitement in her gait obvious. She was walking for him, to allure, attract, distract, but most of all to present. It was as if she were a model on a runway, and he was a critic of some kind, tasked with evaluating her; the swords swayed to and fro, the hips from side to side, the gait was slow, even and merciless in its sensuality. She wanted him to look, she needed him to look, but his Quirk wasn't working, his Erasure WASN'T WORKING...

"It's not very fun when it's your Quirk that won't go, is it Sensei?" she asked, head cocking to one side and a little giggle escaping her when he audibly grunted with something that definitely wasn't fear, he was NOT afraid but his Erasure wasn't working he couldn't make her stop... "Yeah... at least now we can have a fun fight without any stupid games, right? No counting down until you blink or something stupid like that- we just have to fight and fight and fight until I prove I'm good enough, right?"

Aizawa didn't reply. It was only logical; she was trying to get into his head. She was trying to push him off-balance, play with his emotions and mental state. And it was working; he had never felt this sinking sensation of dread before.

Except...

He had.

A long time ago.

"Aizawa-Sensei..." the woman cooed his name like a lovesick dove, taking another step forward and brandishing those twin crescent blades with a little twirl and flourish. "Won't you teach me a lesson? I've been so naughty..."

Aizawa swallowed back that sickly sensation that cling to the insides of his throat, grasping his scarf in both hands. The woman giggled again, her stance dropping down, knees bending and feet turning, her back arching forward slightly. Then the swords came up, the right horizontal to the ground, held higher than her head with the left vertically oriented, blade turned toward him. He dropped into his stance as well. No Quirk. Well... at least hers was a similar idea to his own. But this pervading sense of discomfort, this abyssal pit in his stomach that yawned with dreadful certainty...

Then she lunged, and there was no more time for thinking.

They didn't fight. Fighting was giving and taking, brutality and elegance all at once. This... this was a dance. He moved aside, time and time again, slipping away from her endless cavalcade of slashes and stabs, nimbly twisting his body between the silver streaks of her swords. He attempted to snatch at her legs, her arms, even her neck with his capture tool, but in return all he got for his efforts was a cut across his forearm and a matching wound on his cheek.

She pressed closer at one point, and he seized the chance; his capture tool was almost uncuttable, treated carbon nanotubes worked into the material by special request. He wrapped it around her swords, trapping her close to him, holding her in place... then he knocked her helmet off. It took a twist of his hips and a raised elbow awkwardly striking at the bottom lip right where her chin would be, but the helmet came off with surprising ease. Aizawa stared at his opponent, and suddenly something horrible and horrifying and all too logical clicked into place.

"Sensei..."

She was blushing. As she had in the nurse's office three years ago, when he told her she needed to take better care of herself. As she had whenever he had said anything remotely positive about her improvement as a potential hero. As she had when she had left chocolate on his desk during Valentine's Day...

As she had when she had kissed him on the cheek and then taken off toward the training ground, the day she crippled Judai Issho. Her last day as a student at UA. Her last day as a member of Class 2-A.

Ishizu Sorano stared at him with narrowed eyes, blushing scarlet like a maiden at the wedding altar. She looked wrong, off, dark bags under her sparkling green eyes and an unhealthy pallor to her skin. Her hair was a tangled mess of black cut short and messy, the ends barely falling to her neck. There was a scar on the underside of her chin, fresh and recent.

She giggled under his examination, twisting her head a little so he could see the scar running under her right ear, the very place she had cracked against a jutting spar of steel rebar in Training Ground 12. Then the blush faded and her thin lips twisted into a grin, identical to something Midnight had once described as 'sultry'. She leaned in closer, taking advantage of his shock, and kissed him in a long and passionate sort of way. She even bit him, the tiniest bit, teeth nibbling at his bottom lip

He planted a knee in her stomach, and she retched and staggered backward, sliding her swords free of his capture tool. He also stepped back, trying to get some distance and some time to think about what was happening. The pit of dread was gone now, it had faded to nothing. Now he was just... confused.

"Aizawa-Sensei..." she whined like a spoilt child. "That was so~~ mean..."

"What are you doing, Ishizu?" The words escaped him before he could stop them, his mouth moving without any conscious thought, and he watched as her face lit up and she giggled again.

"Aizawa-Sensei said I wasn't good enough..." she cooed, her swords slowly twirling in her hands. "He said I didn't have any potential... so I thought, maybe I can't be a hero. And then Sensei will never love me. But, if I couldn't be a hero..."

She looked him in the eyes, the sickly green of her irises shimmering in the low light.

"Then maybe I could be a villain." she said, the slightest crack in her otherwise childish sing-song showing him that it was all just an act. "And then Aizawa-Sensei would _have _to chase me down and we could be together like we were always meant to be…"

If she meant to say anything more, it was drowned out in an instant by the thunderous sound of an angry Katsuki Bakugo expressing his boundless rage, accompanied by a flash of blue as Dabi matched the blonde blast for blast. The warehouse wasn't on fire… yet. It likely would be in time, given a few moments at least. Ishizu smiled at him again, her eyes glinting in the light of the fire and explosions.

Bakugo let loose another detonation, one that threatened to engulf Mr. Compress. Aizawa's eyes flicked to the side to see it all better, and that was all the opening Ishizu needed. In an instant one of her swords flashed through the air, and Aizawa just barely caught the blade with his capture weapon. It was a feint, of course, the other blade lunging for his stomach. He twisted away from the attack, the sword only grazing him, and brought one leg up in another kick. She darted back away from him, twirling her swords in her hands. She was facing away from the door, Bakugo, Dabi and Compress' brawl behind her. He was facing her down, doing his best now to ignore the fight in the background.

At the sound of yet another blast, Ishizu lunged again. Both swords were shining in the orange and blue light, but this time he was focused entirely on her. Her head jerked to one side, dodging a punch aimed square at her face. As if it were acting under a mind of its own, one of her swords twisted impossibly, making her entire wrist bend in a way that a wrist should not bend, just to slash upwards along his face, biting into his cheek again and then trailing up to cut his brow. Blood trickled into his left eye, causing him to blink, wince and stagger back. Ishizu did the same, giving him space for some unknown reason. He took the opportunity to wipe at his eye, to try and get his vision back.

But then he heard a familiar sound, one that made his teeth itch, followed then by maddened laughter that must have come from Tomura Shigaraki. He didn't look, he couldn't afford to take his eyes off Ishizu, but he knew the sensation and more importantly he knew the sound. Kurogiri had arrived, or at least one of his warp gates had.

Ishizu glanced over his shoulder and he lunged, taking advantage of the momentary distraction to come at her low and from the side. She reacted a moment too late, his capture tool had wrapped around her right arm and pulled it back, her sword falling from loosened fingers before he lunged forward, dragging her arm with him and pulling her off balance before landing behind her. He threw the other end of the scarf back behind him and felt it catch on her torso. It took her right under the ribs, and he pulled it tight.

Her body slammed into his, pinning them back to back, and hurriedly he twisted his wrist to make a loop in the capture tool to take her around the neck. He pulled that arm up, and wrenched forwards, and the choked gasp she took as the reinforced fabric wrapped around her thin neck was like music to his ears.

"I'm ending this now, Ishizu." he warned her, voice a fatigued growl. "Stand down, or-"

Cold.

A deep, biting cold in his stomach, accompanied by a surge of icy pain like a lance in his stomach. His body twitched, his head fell as strength left him, and he noticed the thin silver line emerging from the centre of his stomach, covered in so much red. Red that was coming from him, it seemed, flowing from the wound in his stomach, falling to the cement floor and pooling in a puddle that was much too big to be healthy. He coughed, and tasted copper, felt a wetness dribble out past his lips and down his chin, soaking his capture tool. Two swords. Two. But the angle of the blow… she must have stabbed through herself to get at him.

"Sensei~~" Ishizu whispered, her head right next to his as she bent her body back, and he could hear the wetness in her voice as some of her own blood fell from her lips. "Am I good enough now?"

She freed herself of his capture tool with a few careful twists of her body, shoving him backwards and letting him topple down to the ground on his stomach. The sword slid free of both their stomachs with a vicious sucking sound, and he dropped with a heavy thud. The world was quieter now, sounds distant, each of Bakugo's explosions more like muffled thunder in the distance. He coughed up more red, all over the dirty warehouse floor. He forced his head up, looking at the back of the warehouse wear Shigaraki was back on his feet, cackling madly as another warp gate opened up.

He saw Kurogiri emerge holding two tiny bundles, one in each arm, and then the world went black.

**Edited by the overwhelmingly awesome Unsettling-A.I.R**


	24. In Which Aizawa Finds Forgiveness

After his brawl with Stain in a back-alley in Hosu, Izuku was well acquainted with the sound of a blade passing through flesh. He'd been stabbed twice in that fight, as had Iida and Todoroki. It was noise he didn't particularly enjoy, a sort of quiet rasp as it entered the flesh followed by a wet sucking sound as the blade was extracted. It was typically accompanied by a scream, or at least a gasp of pain.

So when Izuku turned his head and saw that the woman brawling with Aizawa (Darkstar, Toga had called her, before giggling at something she was too out-of-it to explain) had jammed a sword through her own stomach, he was disturbed a touch by how quiet she had been. Then he saw the familiar grey strands of Aizawa's capture-tool wrapped around her neck and torso and the sagging dark shape at her back and his eyes went wide.

And then he heard that sound, the nauseating sound of a blade being pulled from flesh, and he saw his teacher collapse into a puddle of his own blood with a dull thud. His whole body stiffened up, and much to his regret fear overtook the righteous anger billowing inside him, like cold water dumped on hot metal. He swallowed back a scream.

Aizawa-Sensei was down.

Izuku had only seen some of the fight between the strange woman apparently named Darkstar and his teacher, but he had seen enough. She had impaled herself on her own sword just to get at Aizawa. She was insane. Now she was staggering towards him with that bloodied blade still glistening with her and Aizawa's combined gore. Izuku touched a hand to Toga's forehead, murmuring a command to stay where she was, before rising to his feet.

Darkstar still approached, a maddened grin spread wide across her face. There was a glow to her cheeks, a warmth and joy that told him all he needed to know. She was insane, clearly, but she was excited by her own madness. She had injured, possibly even killed Aizawa, and now she was happier than she had ever been. The idea of this woman… no, this monster taking such pleasure in hurting somebody precious to him…

Izuku felt that heat and pressure building inside again. One For All surged into being, only to fizzle out when she took another step. Fifteen metres then, that was her radius. Wide enough to be imposing, yet manageable. He didn't need One For All to beat her down then. He raised a single finger and pointed it at her, before lowering his stance and bracing to charge. He would surge low, strike at the leg first and knock her down. Stomp the sword out of her hand. Finish it with a kick to the head for a knockout. Or a killing blow. At this point he didn't really care to restrain himself. These monsters had taken his children, tried to murder his teacher, killed who knew how many others.

Her smile widened when she saw the look on his face, that single sword rising to point back at him. Izuku took a breath, and charged for vengeance.

Black and purple filled his vision, his stomach lurched and he came to a screeching halt when he saw Kurogiri and Shigaraki standing some fifteen feet away, Kurogiri looming tall over a tiny bundle while Shigaraki…

Izuku's eyes widened, and his jaw dropped. Shigaraki had another tiny shape in his grasp, holding it by what looked like strings coming from its back. It was a baby, clearly, with a tuft of curly green hair atop its head. The strings weren't strings; they were like fleshy tendrils, eight of them, coming from it's back in pairs all along it's shoulder blades. They were as thick as pencils, and wrapped around Shigaraki's wrist and fingers. The baby was crying, a soft and pathetic sound, and Izuku felt his heart clench in his chest with an aching like he'd never felt before.

Shigaraki bounced the baby a little, moving his arm up and down. That twisted grin was back on his face, and Izuku knew exactly why. Kurogiri was standing over one child, laid on the floor like so much refuse. Shigaraki had the other.

And there was nothing Izuku could do about it.

"Deku..." Shigaraki's voice cracked, but not from fear. He sounded like he was fighting the need to burst into hideous laughter, the grin on his face stretching even wider. "Take off that mask. I want to see your face when I turn your little girl to dust!"

Something in Izuku cracked. He could feel it, a barrier or restraint of some sort simply giving way under the strain of all his pent up fury. Some detached part of his mind that was yet to succumb to this savage anger wondered if this was how Bakugo felt in the midst of one of his rages, this surging heat in his chest and throat that burnt its way through his veins and set his blood to boiling. Then it wondered if this was why his oldest friend was so fond of fighting; if that was the only way to relieve himself of this sensation, Izuku couldn't blame him.

One For All flared again, and Izuku could feel a bizarre burning in one of his wrists, his left. He didn't know the sensation, but it felt like what he imagined having something wriggling around just under your skin felt like, a sort of itching and ticklish sensation. He could feel his eyes afire, those jagged lines of power One For All branded him with glowing brighter, brighter, brighter still as the aura of green lightning turned into a sort of cloak, long lines of emerald light falling around him, the scent of burning and ozone filling the air.

He was sheathed in power, the atmosphere rippling with his fury. One For All was a Quirk that increased in strength with each bearer. This was something he and All Might had figured out quite quickly. It was possible, distinctly so, that Izuku's true one-hundred percent would surpass All Might's by an order of magnitude. If that was true, Izuku realized now, then Shigaraki was not a man for whom there was any hopeful future.

Or, his mind continued, any future at all.

"Put her down." Izuku spoke, and his voice was amplified to boom all through the warehouse, One For All enhancing even his vocal cords. "Gently. Step back. Or I will _break you_."

Behind him, the ongoing sounds of Bakugo and Dabi's contest came to a halt. Outside, Snipe's gunfire faded, as did all other sounds in the warehouse. Shigaraki stared at Izuku. Izuku stared at Shigaraki. For a long moment that seemed to stretch out into infinity, in the eye of the storm that had been long brewing in that warehouse, there was quiet.

And in that quiet, something stirred.

Cold.

It was cold now.

Shouta Aizawa knew he was dying. He couldn't feel his legs, and the pain in his stomach was so bad it had actually come full circle and become dull and distant, a meaningless throbbing in some far-flung corner of his body. His eyes were watering, the left still blinded by gore. His scarf was a tangled mess on the floor around him. What little vision he had left was darkening. What little movement he could manage seemed hopeless, his arms twitching and his head turning a little to the side. Then he saw it. No. Them.

The children. Shigaraki was holding one, the girl, by those tendrils growing from her back like she was a toy on a string. The other was on the floor, still swaddled in those white blankets that were stained black by the filth all over the floor of the warehouse. Aizawa snarled, hands reaching for the last weapon he had available to him. It was a long shot, literally, and he wasn't even sure he had the air left in his lungs to use it.

But the collapsible blowpipe pre-loaded with a high-powered tranquilizer dart he had added to his belt for emergencies like this... it was there. He unfolded it, straightened it, all with trembling hands that were going numb. He brought it up to his face, and sighted the distance with his single eye. Sixty feet distant, but Shigaraki was completely still, shouting something he couldn't hear. Izuku was a fountain of green lightning in the middle of the warehouse floor, but he wasn't in the way of Aizawa's shot.

He aimed for the head; the dart would drop, and slam right into the villain's throat. Plenty of important arteries there to convey the poison through his body. Aizawa pulled his head back, pulling a deep, shuddering breath into his lungs, forcing himself to keep it slow and clean.

Then he raised the flared end of the pipe to his lips, and expelled that breath in a short, sharp burst.

The dart flew, the black plastic fletching and dulled metal body making it almost impossible to see in the gloomy evening. He watched it fly though, his one eye tracking its path through the air. He was going to die soon. That wasn't okay. Not yet. He had to save them first. The kids, his problem child's problem children. The fact that he smiled at that made him feel a little better; it was probably an ugly smile, bloodstained and weak. Nothing Ishizu would find attractive.

The dart flew straight and true and then it sank into an abyss of darkness as Kurogiri opened a portal and Aizawa's breath escaped his lungs in a wet, bubbling groan of exasperation before he reached for one of his throwing daggers. He'd only used three on Twice outside, the fourth would still...

A foot crashed down on his wrist, pinning it to the ground, and his breath was stolen from him by the shock as something cracked painfully.

"I'm quite afraid that can't be allowed to happen, Eraserhead." the dramatic flair in the hushed voice, the leather boot, the way it twisted a little before he saw a black pant leg with a tapered end enter his line of sight... "You cannot interfere any further. Attempting to interfere at all was quite unsporting, as a matter of fact."

"Problem... child..." Aizawa groaned, before his other hand, which had been reaching for his last holdout weapon, drove his boot-knife into Mr. Compress' leg just above the ankle, the blade biting deep into the tender flesh and muscle there. There was a spurt of blood.

Compress screamed, loud and horrible, and to Aizawa it was as if the sound was underwater. He forced himself to crawl forward, pulling on Compress to haul his body forwards using what little strength remained in his arms. His legs weren't moving when he told them to. Spinal injury. If he survived, he'd be in a wheelchair for the rest of his life. He coughed up blood and called it a laugh at the thought of Hizashi having to push him around so he could yell at his students. At least he hadn't lost his eyes. Without them he'd be…

Well, useless wasn't the best word, but it was a good one.

Compress was an awful fighter but he made a decent ladder with which to climb the floor. Climb the floor. Aizawa was on the brink of death, wasn't he? He was quite certain now. Hizashi would have laughed at that one. Roku would have just chuckled. Nemuri would have been more confused than anything. Shouta Aizawa making a surreal joke? Impossible. But then again, he _was_ dying. He was pretty sure he was entitled to one last bad joke. Also his first bad joke.

There was a lot of blood on the ground. The vast majority of it was his. Aizawa felt it all over his hand as it went down, searching, and snatched from his hip his last throwing dagger. Eight inches of smoothly curved steel, the handle fitting very nicely in his grip. He had never carried quite so many blades before, but this was a special circumstance. Technically speaking it was numerous special circumstances, all stacked on top of one another. This was a rescue operation, contended by a group of particularly deadly villains, and the targets for the actual rescue were his student's newborn twin children and his rapist.

And now said student was falling to the ground unconscious.

Oh.

Aizawa's vision was darkening, but he could see with his solitary eye remaining to him the tiny black shape embedded in the side of Izuku's neck. His brain sluggishly took another moment to discern what exactly that shape was, before he saw the fletching and the smooth plastic and it all clicked.

He was only five feet away from Izuku when the boy collapsed. He hit the ground with a heavy thud, the light of his Quirk fading into nothing when he made impact. Shigaraki was walking closer now, still holding Izuku's little girl by those tendrils, and Aizawa went completely still.

"Be wary, Tomura Shigaraki." Kurogiri's voice called out in that resonant rumble Aizawa has first heard at the USJ, what seemed like an eternity ago. "Eraserhead is still alive."

"Yeah, I'll get to him…" Shigaraki growled. "But first I want to make sure Deku's actually out."

Shigaraki's foot slammed into Izuku's head with enough force to turn the boy's neck, and Aizawa felt a new strength surge into his body. Just enough, perhaps, to stop this. Shigaraki brought one hand down, the only hand he had free, and his eyes focused completely on Izuku. Aizawa used that new strength and surged into motion.

His legs weren't working, but his arms still functioned to an extent. Enough to throw himself forwards and tackle Shigaraki from the ground, that last throwing knife digging into his right shoulder. Shigaraki's eyes went wide and a shriek of pain escaped his chapped lips but Aizawa had already released the knife and reached out, catching the baby and cradling her close to his chest as he twisted and hit the ground. It hurt, a surge of terrible pain lancing up his back, but he could feel the little girl in his arms move a little, her crying coming to a halt, and quickly he tucked her in close to his chest.

Behind him, Bakugo was moving. He could hear it, multiple explosions propelling the blonde forwards and over a still-reeling Shigaraki's head. Kurogiri seemed to brace, but Katsuki let out a screamed out two words and raised a hand and the world went white for all involved.

When everything faded back into sight, Aizawa saw that Bakugo had the second child wrapped up in his arms and was running away, back towards the door. A single eye tracked to the doorway itself, in which loomed the cloaked figure of Tokoyami, ragged and torn but still standing tall, Dark Shadow filling the space around him with the writhing shape of a raging void. Bakugo shouted something and Dark Shadow surged into motion, Class 1-A's angriest student passing off the baby to the clawed hands of Tokoyami's Quirk before whirling around.

Aizawa could see Shigaraki and Kurogiri, the latter forming a black portal underneath Izuku into which the unconscious boy sank with dreadful certainty. Aizawa's single eye flashed, slowing the portal's formation, and for a split second the billowing purple and black smoke that formed Kurogiri's body evaporated and he saw something that may have once been human but now looked twisted and half molten, with no mouth or nose to speak off and a heavy metal collar around his neck and shoulders. Then the smoke began to billow again, Bakugo's hand reached out for Izuku…

And Bakugo screamed with rage and desperation as Izuku's unconscious form fell into the portal, Shigaraki backstepping into the dark as well with one last cackling laugh. Aizawa saw Ishizu disappear, dragging Toga by the hair and still limping, and for a split second she looked over her shoulder and smiled at him in that stomach-churning way, cold and ruthless and utterly unapologetic. Then she too was gone, and Kurogiri vanished right before Bakugo's explosion eradicated the ground upon which he had been standing.

Bakugo stood in the warehouse with nothing but the bleeding corpse-to-be of his home room teacher for company, shoulders heaving and hands trembling. He turned, slowly, and dropped to his knees in what couldn't be defeat because this was Katsuki Bakugo, and 'defeat' was a hateful slur to his ears. Then he looked up.

Aizawa wasn't sure which was worse; the pain in his stomach and spine and all throughout his broken form...

Or the sight of Katsuki Bakugou experiencing anguish for quite possibly the first time.

Behind him, a shoe scuffed the cement before something dark and powerful wrapped him up to begin pulling him away. Dark Shadow, of course; Tokoyami was shouting at it, at him, at Bakugo and seemingly everything else, his usual detached nature torn away by Izuku's taking. But all that was far away and out of sight for Aizawa, whose breath was coming slower and slower, whose solitary remaining eye was starting to droop.

He could see _her_, sitting there on a white bench with hands demurely folded in her lap, wearing the same green vest and dark red skirt she had been wearing that night. To her left was a bright light like a door in the air, and to her left an image of what little his eye could still see playing live as he was dragged away by Dark Shadow. Her own large, expressive eyes searched his own as he stood before her in a field of blank, empty nothing, where she had waited for months now. She saw the grief, the regret, the guilt and the shame, and she smiled.

"You did everything you could," she told him. "And more besides. Izuku is strong. He'll find a way."

He took a hesitant step forward. His legs were working again. Somehow. Another step, knees trembling, the muscles turning to soup as his body threatened to collapse. He was uninjured, spine without any damage and stomach patched clean shut. He felt better than he had in years, and worse than he had ever felt before. She stood, and though her head barely reached his chest still she took him and pulled him close in warm, loving arms. He collapsed into her, clutching at her and wondering how it was his eyes didn't feel dry for the first time in a very long time.

"He had such a good teacher, after all." Inko Midoriya reassured him.

Ah, he realized. That explained it. He was crying.

He did that for a time, simply holding her and being held and letting himself feel, truly feel, after what felt like an age of forcing himself to not do exactly that. His body shook, and he realized she was crying too and together they were making quite a mess of each other's clothing. Then, finally, he felt the last of his tears leave him, and he straightened up. He looked down at her, and she looked up at him, and then blinked.

"I've been waiting." she explained, looking down at the white of the ground beneath them. "I… I didn't want to go alone. That seemed selfish, and Izuku still needed me, and…"

"It's okay." he murmured. "We can go together."

"My hero," she said back, and the words made him feel something warm and pleasant inside.

Shouta Aizawa straightened himself up a little more, losing his slouch for once, before turning toward the light to their side. He extended a hand and she took it in her own, warm and soft and gentle. She sniffled a little, looking back over her shoulder, and he did the same. Behind them the last fading image of Tokoyami, Bakugo and Todoroki... no, of Fumikage, Katsuki and Shouto over his broken form was present, and he closed his eyes.

"I'm proud of you all." he whispered, and he knew his bloodied lips were sounding the words out as well, as the phantom sensation of all that pain from before filled him for a moment. "Remember that."

And he turned away, with the woman he was not allowed to love in life holding his hand, and walked into the light with her by his side.

And so ended the story of Shouta Aizawa.

**As always, proofread and edited with assistance from Unsettling-A.I.R, who is very sorry. As am I.**


	25. In Which Midoriya Is Here

**Warning for some non-consensual touching. Nothing particularly graphic but it's still here and present so be wary.**

Pain. Throbbing, swollen, perpetual pain, pounding at the inner walls of his skull like a drum. It was unfortunately a familiar sensation, almost an old friend at that point. He felt dizzy, disoriented, sickly and wrong, so very wrong, like he was missing something.

"Wake up, Deku. We've got some talking to do."

Izuku Midoriya awoke slowly, blinking blearily as he tried to clear away the haze of unconsciousness. He brought a hand up to his face, and found that he couldn't quite reach that far, something cold and hard around his wrists preventing him from actually moving much at all. A ragged moan escaped his lips as the insides of his skull throbbed in protest at this failed attempt at motion, along with the sudden light filtering into his vision. He slammed his eyes closed again, but then wearily forced them open. His whole body ached, but his head was the worst of it, with his brain feeling like it was pressing against the walls of his skull, trapped, confined in a space too small for it.

All of this felt familiar, the pain and the throbbing, and yet something was wrong. He saw in front of him Shigaraki, grinning with all the malice of the devil, and the emaciated form of Toga, who was still naked and strapped to a metal table. Her ankle was still a swollen mess, his makeshift splint having been removed. The sight sent a quick surge of anger through him, but he still felt hollow and distant and his head throbbed all the worse when he tried to channel One For All into his body. Shigaraki snapped his fingers in front of Izuku's face, and he winced.

"Pay attention." the villain commanded. "I'm only gonna say this once."

Shigaraki stared him down for a long moment, that leering smile vanishing from his face and leaving behind something a lot more terrifying; a strange, empty expression, like he was bored already of both his captives. As far as Izuku could tell, they were alone; it was just Shigaraki, Toga and himself. Toga was conscious and looked quite afraid and far more alert, evidently having been taken off whatever sedative had been used to keep her so docile in the warehouse. Shigaraki's hands came up and cupped Izuku's cheeks, one finger raised on each side, his red eyes narrowed as he looked deep into Izuku's green.

Then he let go, and turned around. One hand flexed and twitched; the one with the broken finger, the left one. The right was fine, and it too was rapidly clenching and unclenching, forming a claw shape and then letting it fade into an open hand before tensing again. Shigaraki's breathing was slow and heavy, like he was forcing himself to breathe, to stay calm. Slowly those hands came up and he began to scratch at the scarred sides of his neck, inflaming the pre-existing red lines and making them swell up brighter.

"I'm not going to kill you." he said, voice a low rasp, far from the bemused snarling and laughing of the warehouse. "No, no, no I'm not going to kill you. That'd be too easy… no. No killing."

Izuku looked down at him, dangling from the wall, and Shigaraki twitched violently, a spasm running through his body. He looked down at Toga, who was watching him with terrified eyes, and Izuku couldn't quite make out what changed on his face to make Toga's fear turn to horror until Shigaraki turned and he saw the smile was back.

"No, what was it you said in the warehouse?" Shigaraki put a finger to his chin and cocked his head to the side like a child. "You didn't say anything about killing me. You were going to put me down… but no, I liked the other one better. The part at the end before Eraserhead shot you. What was it you said?"

Izuku felt ice water run down his back and a trembling break out all across his body as Shigaraki took a step closer. He tried again to spark One For All but nothing came of it, none of his inherited power would answer his call. Shigaraki leaned in closer, that smile fading again and a look of pure, unbridled hate filling his expression instead.

"Right." he said, with a voice like graveyard wind. "I'm going to break you."

Then he turned, and brought a finger up to his chin again.

"But how best to do that?" he wondered aloud. "I can't hurt you. You hurt yourself enough that you probably wouldn't even mind. I can't kill you… that's too easy. But!"

Shigaraki turned again, spinning in place and throwing his arms wide. His smile was back, his expression the look of the cat who had caught the canary. Predatory, vicious, an absolute lack of mercy made plain by the light in his eyes as he spoke his next words.

"I can hurt her." he said, and Izuku pulled at the chains holding his arms over his head desperately. "Oh, you wouldn't like that at all, would you? That would just be awful… you wouldn't be able to do anything to stop me! You'd just have to sit and watch as I took away something you loved…"

His voice dropped octave by octave as he spoke, until it was nothing but a cold whisper that sent shudders all through Izuku's body.

"Just like me."

Shigaraki turned back to Toga, who was squirming weakly in her restraints, and reached out with a hand. He traced a single finger along her chest, making a little figure eight before pulling downwards, as if searching. He stopped on her navel and pressed the finger a little deeper.

"Maybe I'll start here, take away her chances at any more little bundles of joy?" he asked, before his finger went lower and traced between her thighs. Toga whimpered, a quavering sound of fear that made Izuku's fury burn even brighter.

"Shigaraki, stop." He tried to put an authoritative spin on his voice, but it just rasped out less like a command and more like a plea. "Don't do this."

"I could just grab right here… her screams would be incredible…" Toga whimpered again, Shigaraki's hand tracing a little lower down her leg, to her knee. He didn't even acknowledge Izuku's voice, ignoring him completely. "Or maybe here, take away a leg. A leg for two kids, that's fair trade, right?"

"Shigaraki…" Izuku tried again.

Shigaraki's finger wandered further down, touching Toga's swollen mess of an ankle, and she let out a pained groan. He pressed harder with that one finger and the groan grew louder, Toga's arms straining at the straps holding her down before Shigaraki stopped.

"I think I'll leave that there…" he whispered, as if sharing a secret with the two of them. "I wouldn't want to make things better… but…"

"Shigaraki!" Izuku cried out this time. "Just hurt me! She was on your side, remember? She was with you!"

"I KNOW." Shigaraki snarled the words, before his finger began tracing the shape of Toga's other ankle, slowly dancing around. "That's not what this is about. What she did doesn't matter anymore, Deku. I don't care about her… I never did, and I never will. She was an NPC who disobeyed commands, and now she's just a toy."

He put three fingers and a thumb around Toga's intact ankle, a white-knuckle grip, but his pinky finger still hung above the rest, yet to come down. Izuku pulled with all his strength at the chains over his head, but it was no use. He was still weak from the tranquilizer, and One For All wasn't working. His shoulders and elbows screamed as he pulled, particularly on his right side where any more damage would render that arm entirely unusable. He wanted to scream himself, but he bit his lip and kept pulling.

"Shigaraki…" The villain didn't even turn around.

"And I never took very good care of my toys." The pink finger came down, and Toga screamed.

It was a slow process, turning a human ankle to dust. At least, it seemed to be, however many seconds it was turning to a hundred eternities in Izuku's mind. He watched, he had to watch, he couldn't look away and he couldn't fight free and he couldn't save her, so he watched as Toga's face twisted, as skin, muscle and bone disintegrated under Shigaraki's cruel touch, as she bucked and twisted in her restraints.

He watched as her foot fell to the floor, crumbling away to nothing, and she was left with a ragged stump some two inches above where the ankle had been. He watched as she tried to pass out from the pain, and then tried to knock herself out by slamming the back of her head against the table. The strap over her forehead prevented her from even granting herself that small mercy.

Then he watched as Shigaraki stood up, and turned around, and smiled at Izuku with a hand covered in dust. He shook the particles that had once been Toga's ankle off his hand and then patted Izuku on one straining shoulder with it, one finger raised to prevent any accidental disintegrations.

"I'll be back," he promised. "Try not to fall asleep on me again."

Izuku didn't even look at him. He stared at Toga, pitifully sobbing on the table from the pain and despair and everything else he could feel bubbling inside his own chest, and he let out a single choked sob with her before swallowing it back.

"Why?" he asked Shigaraki's back, and to his surprise the man turned around and answered with a simple, almost friendly smile.

"Because I can." he said, before closing the heavy metal door of the cell and disappearing from Izuku's sight.

There was a morbid silence in the cell after that, the sound of Toga's cries the only thing to fill the room besides Izuku's slow, steady breathing. Eventually she stopped, or at least muffled the sound by biting her own tongue, and Izuku looked at her.

"I'm sorry." he said, too weak to speak in anything more than a dry whisper. "Toga… I didn't want this."

"It's okay…" she murmured, between sobs. "Deserve… it…"

"No!" Izuku shook his head frantically, pulling on the chains without thinking in an effort to reach out toward her. "Toga, you don't deserve this! Nobody deserves this!"

"Ko-Ko was… a bad… bad girl…" Her eyes seemed far away in that moment when she whimpered, shaking her head and closing her eyes. "Papa… be mad…"

Izuku blinked. This… wasn't what he expected from Toga, not in a million years. Some sort of muddled, incomprehensible nonsense about her twisted 'love' for him, maybe, but this helpless, traumatized, child-like fear? It almost reminded him of Eri when he first met her in the street, clinging to his leg and quietly pleading for help. But this wasn't Eri. Eri was blameless, innocent. This was Toga, who had killed who-knows how many innocent people, who had done terrible things, who had killed Izuku's own mother…

And yet, Izuku couldn't hate her.

"Toga… Himiko." he called her using her name, her first name, and that seemed to do the trick as her body jolted a little. "Himiko… it's me. It's Izuku. You know me. You… we…"

His chest tightened, his eyes watered and he forced out the next words, because now that all his anger and frustration and sheer, undeniable hatred of Shigaraki and everything he stood for had slipped away, all he was left with was despair and the realization that he was trapped in a room and would be forced to watch a girl he should hate but couldn't be slowly killed by a psychopath. She shifted a little, head turning to one side, to face towards him. Her eyes still told him she was far away, however, the reaction likely an automatic one in response to her own name.

"We have two children." he said, clinging to that truth as a last scrap of hope. "Al baby boy and girl. They… I came to save them… to save you. Do you remember?"

The way her eyes were glazed over, the delayed reactions… a head injury, it had to be. Some sort of brain damage, likely caused by either some blow to the head he'd missed earlier in the warehouse or something that had been done to her while he was unconscious. Looking at her more closely he could see the definite signs of a beating; bruises along her arms and legs that hadn't been there before, he didn't think, and the way she was shifting her head made him suspect she was trying to keep part of it from touching the metal of the table.

She stared up at him, blinking slowly, before a tentative smile slowly stretched across her face, a genuine look of joy tempered by fear and hesitation. She was like Eri, so much so it hurt… had she regressed to some prior mental state? Was that even scientifically possible? He'd done plenty of research on injuries to the arms and legs, but little involving the head. Perhaps it was the effect of some Quirk? That didn't make any sense; he'd never heard of a Quirk that could do something like this.

"Babies…?" she repeated, before her eyes flashed, and she swallowed. "Izu-kun?"

She blinked, and looked at him like she was seeing him for the first time since he had woken up. That mad gleam in her eyes was back, the red orbs no longer watery and innocent. She had recovered her killer's instinct, that harsh light behind the crimson of her irises, and for a moment he shivered before he remembered that she was bound even more strictly than he was.

"Izu-kun… the babies… Izu-kun's babies… are they safe?" she asked him, and he nodded.

"I… I think so." he replied. "Shigaraki would have… would have threatened us with them, he did it before. He mentioned not having them, I think… Himiko, I'm… I'm going to get us out of here."

"I can't walk…" she reminded him, wiggling the stump of her right foot, and he winced at the sight. "Izu-kun… how are we going to…?"

Izuku thought for a long while about that. If he were being honest with himself, escape sounded almost impossible at the moment. They were in the League's clutches, hopelessly outnumbered, and they had a Quirk-nullifier. A badly injured Quirk-nullifier, but still, the point stood. He wasn't sure if any backup was coming, and if there was it would likely take them some time to find wherever the League had warped them to. The only real option he could see was breaking them out himself, escaping… with a crippled Toga.

He could leave her.

The thought came in a flash and instantly he swatted it aside mentally. No. That wasn't an option, that was… he wasn't a villain. He wasn't going to go and abandon somebody to the hands of a madman like Shigaraki. It wasn't going to happen. He had to stay strong, stand by his convictions, now more than ever.

He thought of his friends, of Iida and Uraraka and Todoroki and even Bakugou. He thought of All-Might, to whom he owed so much. He thought of his mother, who would never have wanted him to choose the path of a villain. And then he nodded once.

"I'll… I'll think of something." he reassured her, still scrambling to do just that. "Just… hold on."

Toga watched him for a little while, before smiling. It wasn't her smile. At least, it wasn't one he had seen before. Toga's smile was akin to that of a predator, all sharp teeth and cold eyes, hungry in the way she pitched her head forward and twisted her lips. But this… this seemed more like a smile of fondness, of hope… of love. Izuku had seen his mother smile like that before, while discussing his father. And for once, when he met her eye and she smiled like that, he didn't shudder or cringe away. It didn't make him afraid. Izuku wasn't afraid of Toga. Not any more.

But he was afraid for her.

And for a time they lingered in silence, Izuku dangling from the wall and Toga shivering on the cold metal table, still smiling at him. Her eyes closed after a time but the way she shifted a little now and then told him she wasn't asleep. Like as not she was trying to be, but with the pain of a ruined ankle and a missing foot… sleep was unlikely. So Izuku stared at her, really looking at her for the first time. Not as an analysis, not to see what was wrong, not to discern how best to fight her. He just wanted to see her. See Toga. See the girl who had taken so much from him, who had hurt him.

It was strange. This waif of a girl, so delicate looking, with such a childish mannerism, had done more to hurt him than Shigaraki or Stain or Overhaul. They had attacked him, tried to kill him, but she had killed his mother. She had… used him, forced herself upon him, and for a moment that sickly sensation of disgust and horror built up in his throat like bile before he forced it back down and closed his eyes.

"I should hate you."

The words came unbidden to his lips, a dry croak that over the course of four simple syllables made her smile fade and her eyes open up, so wide with something that looked so much like fear it almost made him regret the words. And yet he didn't apologize; instead he met her gaze with one of his own, unblinking and inviolate.

"You took my mama from me," he continued, but his voice lacked any accusatory tone. It was a repetition of facts, something they both knew to be true. "You killed her. Used her face. Used her to get to me, to hurt me, to use me like a toy…"

"Killed her?"

Izuku choked. Not on spittle, or on air, but on his own words, because he was well associated with liars by now. All he needed to do was look in the mirror, to speak to anyone who tried to tell him they thought nothing less of him after what had happened. Toga didn't look like them. She looked confused, baffled even, like what he said made zero sense to her. He stared back, and then she shook her head weakly.

"I didn't wanna kill Izu-kun's mama…" she continued. "I poked her a little with a needle and made her go to sleep, but she was breathing. She wasn't… she was breathing. She was gonna… she was…"

Izuku felt something awful then. Dread, perhaps, or guilt. Shame. He wasn't sure, this felt an awful lot like all of them. But looming tall and ominous over it all was basic, plain confusion. If Toga was telling the truth, if she hadn't killed his mother… who had? Why? How? She was beaten to death, bludgeoned with a heavy metal object until she died of internal bleeding. Aizawa-Sensei had told him so, and he'd read the file.

But then he remembered.

"You hit me with a rolling pin." he said aloud, eyes wide as he flashed back and remembered Toga's smile and the heavy _thud _of the kitchen implement striking his head. "From the kitchen. But it was a crowbar, she was killed with a crowbar, they said… I thought… but you had…"

He had forgotten. He had forgotten until it was right in front of him. Bludgeoned over the head to the point of near-catatonia, drugged and violated, of course he had forgotten! He could barely remember a single moment of that night as anything other than a hazy, dreamlike vision of something horrible and twisted. But…

"You never had a crowbar." he said the words aloud. "You didn't kill her. You wouldn't have beaten her anyways, you would have stabbed her. You only hit me so I couldn't fight back. But… you would have stabbed her. You didn't. You only took blood and… but…"

His mind raced, his headache forgotten in the wake of all these revelations. Who had done this then? Who had taken his mother from him? Why? What was happening? Why did any of this happen to him?

He stared at Toga, who stared at him, and asked again the question that had defined his life for months now.

"Why?"

Because she's insane, his mind immediately provided. Because she's a crazy girl who gets off on blood and pain, because she thinks you're cute when you bleed and suffer, because she's Himiko Toga and you're Izuku Midoriya and she thinks you're destined to be together for some reason.

"Because you cared." she said, and his mind immediately fell silent because apparently it was a liar. "When mama and papa didn't. You told the blonde boy to stop. Nobody else would, because I was Leech and Bloodsucker and Freak. But you stopped him. And he hurt you."

She looked at him with that faraway glimmer in her eyes again, and he realized she was seeing what had happened to her, much like how he constantly saw what had happened to him. But she didn't shiver or shake or curl up on herself (not that it was an option). She just laid there, still as stone, and remembered.

"And you were laying there on the grass." she continued. "And you had blood on your lip, and I kissed you because the pretty girl always kisses the hero, that's what the storybooks say. And it tasted so good… and you asked if I was okay even though you were all burnt and bruised, and every time the blonde boy tried to hurt me you stopped him and he hurt you instead. And you never hurt me."

She sniffled, and he realized that those same distant eyes were clouding with tears as she spoke, and her fingers were curling as if trying to reach towards him. But the leather straps were resolute, pinning her down.

"And I wanted you so much, because mama and papa were awful." she said. "Your mama was nice and patted me on the head and you didn't touch me or hurt me or yell at me when I started shaking like a bad girl… and when I cried under the tree you hugged me. And you cared. Nobody else cared. Nobody else but you."

She spoke the words as if making a confession, and Izuku too remembered as she said them. He remembered a messy blonde girl with yellow eyes and a pallid complexion, practically swimming in a dirty beige hoodie far too large for her tiny form, hiding from Kacchan behind a tree. He remembered Kacchan finding her, calling her Freak and trying to explode her. He remembered standing between them, the burns on his body, Kacchan yelling at him to stop being such a useless Deku and getting in his way. He remembered Kacchan's fist striking his lip, the coppery taste of blood on his tongue.

He remembered the girl coming back, kissing him. His first kiss at age seven, maybe eight? The girl said her name was Ko-Ko, that he was her hero.

Her hero.

Himiko Toga's hero.

"I didn't want to be like mama." Toga continued. "To drink and smoke and shoot things into my arm to feel better. I didn't want… I didn't want to be with someone like papa, I didn't want to feel him touching me and holding me and…"

She made a noise, a choked sound that was all at once sorrow and misery and fear, and Izuku winced to hear it.

"You wouldn't be like him." she said. "And I wouldn't be like mama. We would be good, and happy, and your babies would be happy too and I wouldn't call them freak or monster and you wouldn't touch them or hurt them and we could be good because Izu-kun is good."

"You wanted a family." Izuku said, a realization dawning on him. "You wanted me. So you could start a family. Why… why me?"

"Because Izu-kun is good," she said, as if the answer were obvious. "And because I love you."

"But you… used me." he replied. "That isn't… that's not love. That's evil. It's villainous. Why would you…"

She sniffled again.

"Because nobody could love a monster." she told him. "Nobody could love a freak. Nobody could ever love Ko-Ko. Mama said so. But if I made babies for you, you'd be happy and you'd love them and… and maybe you'd love me, eventually."

Izuku wasn't sure what he felt at that point. It was something. Something angry, tired, hateful, sorrowful, pitiful. Something that felt like fire in his stomach. Something that made him tremble, because he didn't know how to express it. Something he had felt before, something that was uncomfortably familiar.

"Your mother was wrong," he said, and Toga… no, Himiko looked at him with disbelief and confusion plain on her face. "She… she was wrong, Himiko. You aren't a freak. You aren't a monster. And if you are, it's because she made you into one. Your mama and papa are monsters. You're…"

What was Himiko Toga? A villain? Maybe. A murderer? Definitely. A rapist? Well, he knew the answer to that question well enough. And yet how much of that was even her fault? Her Quirk made blood a dependency, like food and water, something she needed to intake. It also made her an outcast, someone to be feared and shunned. Her parents were… if even part of what she was telling him was true, they were practically villains who had shaped her into what she was now. Of course she has latched onto him. His standing up to Kacchan to protect her, protect the scared little girl with the watery yellow eyes and the scars on her back he only saw by accident… he was the first person who seemed to care.

So what was she then?

"You're Himiko Toga." he decided. "And I'm Deku."

He smiled then, because he thought he might finally understand what he had to do. It was an awful plan. It was a foolish plan. But it was all he had. That awful, foolish plan and his drive.

"Your Hero." he declared, before his eyes flared green and his right arm lit up with red lines and green lightning. "So don't worry."

She smiled, hopeful, awestruck and for once free of that killer instinct. He pulled with his arm and felt the concrete of the wall give way along with the bones in his arm, but in the moment the pain didn't even register as he brought his arm and the shackles and the piece of wall down and obliterated the edge of the table she was bound to, multiple straps breaking off instantly and freeing her. The sound was loud, the crashing and banging enough to wake the dead.

But Izuku didn't care. He looked at Toga, who was already scrambling to free herself, and pulled his other arm free, dragging even more of the wall along. Nothing broke this time, though his right arm was a mess. But he didn't care. Because he was a hero, and here was somebody who needed saving. So he smiled at her, and spoke those words that had driven him to tears so many times and watched as she did as he always had.

"I am here."


	26. In Which Shigaraki Makes a Mistake

Perhaps, Izuku wondered in a moment of unfortunately delayed retrospect, shattering approximately eighty percent of the bones in his right arm wasn't such a good idea. Especially not while attempting to escape an underground bunker full of villains eager to make an example of you for the world to see. He took about half a second to think about this, before shrugging with the one functional arm remaining to him and deciding it would be fine. He still had his legs. That meant he could run, kick and, if need be, jump exceptionally high at the cost of a toe or two.

A price he was more than willing to pay. Somehow a devastated arm felt almost familiar, bringing to mind younger and more innocent days of attaining emotional catharsis by doing his level best to beat Todoroki to death in front of thousands so he would stop being such a stubborn moron and use his Quirk. Or the first time he beat Bakugou in that initial combat training session. Or… well, one of the other myriad times he had blown his own arm to smithereens in the name of the greater good.

Toga was attached to his back, arms thrown over his shoulders and holding tight to his chest. With one ankle a swollen, broken mess and the other gone completely, she didn't have many other options. Perhaps a month ago the feeling of her hands on his skin and her bare body pressed against his back would have invoked panic and terror; as it stood, he was smiling. He smiled because he was a hero, and a hero smiled in the face of danger to reassure himself and those around him. He smiled because he was Deku, the Hero Who Can Do It. He smiled because for the first time since that fateful awakening in the hospital, his mind was clear, his conscience utterly unclouded.

He was going to save Toga. He was going to be a hero. And if he happened to beat the tar out of Tomura Shigaraki on the way out, well, that was just good fortune. Perhaps it wouldn't be justice, but it would be a pleasure.

But first… escape the bunker. Get away from the villains. The villains he knew, running down the list in his head. Compress was quick and agile, and could end a fight with a single touch. Primary weaknesses were a lack of physical strength and durability, and a penchant for showmanship. Dabi was a glass cannon; his fire could obliterate Izuku from a range, but he would likely give way under any physical attack. Spinner was relatively unknown, same went for Firefly. Darkstar was fast, deadly, but likely still suffering from a major gut wound. Kurogiri's warp gates would be problematic, but the man was utterly obedient to Shigaraki. Deal with Shigaraki, he decided, and that deals with Kurogiri.

He needed to be careful with all of them. He was effectively fighting with one arm, and with Himiko attached to him he would have that to be wary of as well. He needed to protect her, keep himself mobile, and fend off any of the League that came after them both. No pressure on him, then.

The bunker itself was also unknown. He was underground, he could tell from the vague sense of pressure and the deep, abiding chill in the air, but how far underground he couldn't say. The door to the cell was heavy metal; he'd have to break it down, he reasoned, or wait for somebody to unlock it. With all the noise he'd just made, investigation was likely. So he stayed where he was, Himiko clinging to his back, and waited.

He turned his head to one side, hearing a sound from the hallway outside. Rapid tap-tap-tapping footsteps and steady breathing… Compress, most likely.. The footsteps being the clicking of dress shoes helped, as did the lack of shouting. Dabi would have been breathing differently while Spinner's dagger-club-thing would have been clanking like a kitchen. Twice would have been speaking, and wouldn't have been alone, and Shigaraki… Shigaraki would have been more quiet.

The door swung open, and Izuku swung his right arm around, and the five-pound lump of cement still attached to his wrist by a length of chain came around shortly after and hammered into the side of Compress' head like a flail torn from the medieval ages. The dandily-dressed villain fell to the ground, almost, but caught himself with an outstretched arm snatching the doorframe. His free hand was already coming up, reaching for Izuku, but Izuku didn't feel like giving him the opportunity; he charged and brought one knee up, Full Cowling crackling around him and filling him with inhuman strength.

His knee hammered into Compress' chest, and his momentum carried them both out the door, across the hall and into the wall opposite, where the back of Compress' head cracked against the cement and he let out a single pathetic groan before falling to the ground. Izuku stood over him, bending down to check for a pulse, but one of Himiko's hands reached out and pressed to the side of his neck first.

"Still pumping away." she assured him. "You wanna mess him up a little so he doesn't follow us?"

Izuku considered that for a moment, before nodding.

"Back at the training camp… he was the one who took Kacchan." he said, before raising a foot up and bringing it down, Compress' shinbone snapping like a twig under his heel. The villain didn't even stir. "He won't be going anywhere without his cane."

Izuku picked up said cane from where it had fallen near the door and threw it down the hall a good sixty feet, where it clattered to the ground and possibly broke. In the hallway's dim lighting, it was hard to say for sure, so he shrugged and turned. He heard Himiko murmur an apology to Compress as they walked past his crumpled form.

"Any idea how many others there are?" he asked, and he could hear Himiko chewing her lip right next to his ear before she answered a moment later.

"Dabi didn't come back with them." she declared. "I think he was angry about Izu-kun's babies. He said he didn't want to hurt kids. So… Spinner, Kurogiri, Twice, Darkstar, maybe Firefly? I don't know if he came back. And Shigaraki…"

Izuku could feel her shiver after speaking his name, and he reached up with his functional arm and gave her a pat on the shoulder, as reassuring as he could manage. It was strange to do this, to comfort a former enemy… but she was the person he was here to save.

"I won't let him hurt you again." he declared. "I… I won't let any of them hurt you."

She swallowed back something, he assumed tears, and her arms gripped him a little more tightly. He took a long, bracing breath, and took off down the hall, Full Cowling allowing him to turn what had to have been at least half a kilometer to the stairs out of this section of tunnel into a ten second sprint. He came to screeching halt, however, when he saw the man at the top of the stairs. The silhouette was undeniable, the massive shape slung over one shoulder and the tail whipping at the air behind him…

Spinner stared at Izuku for a long moment, and then stepped to the side, away from the open door at his back, and dropped to one knee.

"Take a left at the end of the corridor beyond, then follow the lights." the lizardine villain instructed, head bowed as if in reverence. "The exit is just beyond, but Shigaraki is there. You have not yet tripped any alarms, and I did not warn him of your escape."

Izuku stared, eyes narrowing with distrust, before taking a single step back, away from the bottom of the stairs.

"Why should I trust you?" he asked.

"I am a disciple of Stain." Spinner declared, head rising. "And you… you are the one he has chosen to succeed All Might. There is no hero worthier of the title Pillar of Peace, he has decreed. What Shigaraki has done here is beyond monstrous, and I cannot rightly support his evil any longer. I sought to break you out myself…"

His eyes tracked along Izuku's form for a moment, particularly the shackles still dangling from his arms, and then he smiled. Or, approximated a smile as best as his reptilian face could manage, tail thumping the ground behind him once.

"I can see you already have that covered." he continued. "You are the next Pillar of Peace. The hope of the next generation. I would as soon fight to stop you as I would fight the coming dawn."

Izuku stared at Spinner for a moment, and wondered. Here was a man who had sworn himself to be a disciple of the same villain Izuku and his friends had fought tooth and nail to bring down, only for the same villain to become an overnight icon with actual, honest to god merchandise and everything. Now he was declaring Izuku to be the next All Might? That hadn't come up in that fateful letter from a few months ago, for some reason… Izuku shook his head. This wasn't the time.

"If you come after us, I won't hesitate." he warned, and Spinner chuckled.

"I will make my own escape." he declared. "I will also endeavour to distract Kurogiri and Twice to give you a fairer chance at escape."

He rose to his feet again, bowed deeply at the waist before turning and walking away. Izuku watched him go, eyes narrowed, and waited until he could no longer hear the heavy sounds of his boots. Only then did he ascend the stairs, slowly and carefully. Sure enough, by the time he reached the top, Spinner was gone. On his back, Himiko sighed.

"I hope he gets out okay." she said, quietly. "He was fun, and he liked Stain too. I think he was a little scared of me…"

She giggled, and now it was Izuku's turn to sigh before taking the advised left. It was, surprise surprise, another long concrete corridor, this one lined with light-strips along the rounded ceiling. Izuku listened for a moment, but heard nothing. It was possible Spinner had been telling the truth then. If it really was just Shigaraki… he'd have to fight his way out. And he wasn't certain he could handle Shigaraki with just one arm and a crippled Himiko attached to his back. He'd have to be clever… or at the very least, he'd have to be fast.

He walked the hallway as quietly as he could manage, the metal plates in the soles of his boots still clanking under him with each step. He did his best to keep his footsteps quiet, at least, but in the dead silence of the hallway each step was like a thunderclap to his ears. After the first twenty feet, he shook his head and bent down a little.

"Hold on." he warned Himiko, feeling her arms tight around him before he exhaled and took off at a sprint again.

The tunnel turned into a blur around him, and he could hear Himiko let out a little yip of delight as they hurtled through the bunker towards the exit. He couldn't really blame her; he had felt much the same when first experiencing the speed and power of Full Cowling. Now, with an easy nine-percent charge rather than the five-percent he had stuck with for so long, he could feel the physical change. He was so much faster, so much stronger, every step propelling him even further forward.

He felt truly alive, and better still, truly like he was in power over his own Quirk.

The door at the end of the hall was ajar and he met it with one boot, slamming it open with a powerful kick. He stepped inside and saw before him Shigaraki, who was scratching wildly at his neck and snarling at the sight of Izuku with Himiko on his back. He had just turned to face them and yet didn't seem at all surprised by their presence. The League of Villain's leader stared at Izuku for a long moment, and then let out a groan of frustration and anger.

"Deku." There was no flair to the name this time, no implications of amusement or malice. It was tired, openly so; tired of him, tired of fighting, tired of the name Deku. "Deku…"

"That's my name." Izuku agreed, nodding once. "Surrender, Shigaraki. You can't hope to beat me. Not like this."

"Not like what?" Shigaraki hissed, stepping closer and bringing his hands up, fingers curling. He had removed the splint from his right pinky finger, the broken digit still swollen around the base. "You've got a ruined arm and a brat hanging off your back. I'm just as strong as I've ever been… no, stronger."

Izuku stared at Shigaraki, who stared right back at Izuku; neither of them blinking, neither of them moving. It was a western-style showdown, Izuku recognized, something Snipe had once called a 'Mexican Standoff'. Neither of them could really make a move without endangering themselves, so they remained still, ready to strike at a moment's notice. They waited and waited for a sign or signal, anything to break the tension and spur them into motion.

Himiko squeezed him a little tighter, head pressed against his left shoulder. Shigaraki's head twitched violently to one side, a sort of spasmodic stutter of the muscles in his neck. Izuku's ruined right arm throbbed with pain. Izuku could see the door, behind Shigaraki, maybe eighty feet distant. The corridor was too narrow to get past him without risking getting grabbed, or worse yet Himiko getting grabbed in his stead. He would have to fight.

"I'm waiting…" Shigaraki hissed, and Izuku moved.

One For All propelled him forward, and Shigaraki reached for his face. Izuku slid to the side, past the outstretched arm, and made to drive his right shin into Shigaraki's stomach. The villain turned and took the blow on the hip instead, hands snatching at Izuku's chest. Izuku switched feet and planted a foot in his chest, shoving him back into the far wall. Shigaraki bounced off and used the momentum to reach for his face again, forcing him to duck low and sweep at the villain's legs with his foot.

The corridor was too narrow. If he had more room to move, if he didn't have Himiko on his back… he dove forwards, catching himself on one hand and both feet before breaking into a hard sprint towards the door. He could hear Shigaraki behind him, running like a predator in pursuit of prey, but then he heard that horrible tearing sound and the world before him turned black and purple. He came to a screeching halt as Kurogiri opened a portal right in front of him, twisting to try and catch Shigaraki before the villain could get a hit in.

He was rapidly running out of options, and if Kurogiri was here it was possible Twice was nearby. That meant he was running out of time as well. Shigaraki alone, that he could possibly handle. Adding Twice and Kurogiri to those odds, however, made them infinitely less favourable for him. He dodged another grab, Shigaraki snarling in frustration, and brought his foot up in another kick this time aimed for his enemy's ribs. Shigaraki dodged away, backstepping before lunging again, arms swinging from the sides. Izuku couldn't risk dodging backwards, so he stepped into the attack and did something unimaginably stupid.

He channeled Full Cowling into his neck and slammed his forehead into Shigaraki's face.

Shigaraki's nose went off like a bomb, blood spurting all over, and the villain staggered backward with a howl of pain and anger. His hands came up to his face, clutching at the ruins of his nose, and Izuku pressed the attack. He aimed a kick for one of those arms, hoping to break a wrist, but Shigaraki managed to duck under it before screaming and bringing his hands up, grasping at Izuku.

Izuku made a call. He was out of position, footwork poor, and had few options to dodge. In his head, he assessed the potential damage, flashing back again to the Sport's Festival. What could he afford to sacrifice? The answer came easily; he twisted his torso and moved the broken remains of his right arm, and Shigaraki latched on with a powerful grip.

Izuku screamed. His arm was already a solid mass of pain from shoulder to fingertips; this was like pouring saltwater over the open wound. The skin disintegrated first, then the flesh beneath, muscle and tendons burning away. Izuku's eyes watered, his body threatened to go catatonic, and somehow he still felt Himiko shift on his back. Her arm came over his shoulder and two fingers jabbed at Shigaraki's eyes, forcing him to let go to shield his face.

Izuku watched in something that wasn't so far from horror as the last of his newly severed arm hit the concrete floor, exploding into dust. The whole limb ended now about four inches from the shoulder, the end a ragged mess that didn't bleed. He stared at it for a moment, before shuddering and dropping to his knees. His stomach heaved and he threw up whatever bile he could manage, the burning in his throat yet another pain signal to add to the pile. He could feel a gentle hand massaging his throat, easing the pain there at least.

"You little shit!" he heard Shigaraki snarl. "Kurogiri, stay the fuck out of this! I'll kill these two myself!"

"Wrong call…" Izuku managed to groan, forcing himself to his feet. He listed to his left a little, the balance of his body all out of whack because his arm was gone, gone forever holy shit. He looked at the pile of dust that had once been his dominant hand, and swallowed back whatever gunk was left in his mouth.

"Himiko…" he groaned. "Lean to the right."

She obeyed the request without a word, and he sighed in relief as some balance returned. Shigaraki was standing there, watching them again. Izuku spared his missing arm one last look, before turning his attention to Shigaraki. Some part of him felt like he was watching all of this from a distance; he wasn't Izuku Midoriya, fighting for his life. He was someone else watching Izuku Midoriya fighting for his life. The arm on the ground wasn't his, the empty stump to his right wasn't his, none of this was happening to him. It was all happening to someone else.

Miss Nyanja had warned him about something like this once. She had called it dissociation, or something to that effect. Izuku, somehow, couldn't quite find it in himself to care all that much if it was dangerous or not. He was already risking his life; who cared if he was detaching from himself a little?

Wait, was he going into shock? He supposed it didn't really matter, so long as he could hold it off until he and Himiko were safe.

"This… this ends now." he declared, and Shigaraki smiled.

"That supposed to be a threat, hero?" he asked, and Izuku just shook his head.

"I already made a promise, Shigaraki." he said, dropping his stance and taking a deep breath. "I'm going to break you. In half, probably."

Shigaraki didn't reply to that; he just charged, ghoulishly stretching his arms out to grab at Izuku and reduce the rest of him to dust, and Izuku closed his eyes for a moment. His timing would have to be perfect, his form flawless. If he messed this up, Shigaraki would be able to grab him and Izuku would be little more than dust. So he opened his eyes again, and ducked low. Shigaraki was overextended, leaning towards him, exposing his stomach.

Izuku's punch would be perfect. The paragon of all sucker punches delivered to the stomach, a true refinement of the artform. Mirio would be proud. Kirisihima would be honoured to behold such a blow being delivered. His fist clenched, each finger tight enough to hold shape but not so tight as to risk breakage on a miss. HIs thumb tucked away perfectly. His entire upper body thrown into the blow, rotating at the waist and pushing up with the shoulder, elbow, even his legs underneath him unbending just to increase the power behind the strike. All of that force, of Izuku's exercise and All Might's training and the power of Full Cowling, pressed into a single point and driven straight into Shigaraki's stomach.

The impact of that single point, Izuku's closed fist, would tear all breath from the villain's lungs, likely throwing him upwards towards the ceiling. Perhaps he would even hit the concrete above, only to drop down to the concrete below like a sack of potatoes. Izuku could see in his mind's eye a gasping, limp Shigaraki straining for breath on the floor, Kurogiri rushing to his side, the door behind him and Himiko free and open at last. Escape. Freedom.

Unfortunately for Shigaraki, however, Izuku's hand was not shaped in a fist.

His fingers were pointing straight upwards, all of them, aligned in a knife-hand. The tips punched right through Shigaraki's black shirt and then the flesh underneath. And then the physical material below that, the organs of the stomach. All the way through, until Izuku felt his arm graze the spine on the way out the back, and he stood upright, screaming with Tomura Shigaraki impaled on his left arm all the way to the elbow.

Shigaraki let out a wet, ragged cough, before Izuku ripped his arm free and let Shigaraki fall to the ground in a rapidly expanding pool of his own blood. The villain's face was locked in a rictus of surprise, shock even, and Izuku took a deep breath and stepped back. Behind him he could feel the portal close, Kurogiri standing at the end of the corridor with those luminescent yellow eyes wide. Izuku stared at him.

"Tell the rest that I'm done." he spoke, voice cold, quiet and wholly undeniable. "No more playing games. If they come after my friends, my family, ever again…"

He pointed a single bloodstained finger towards the dying Shigaraki. And with that last unspoken declaration, he turned and walked away. No portal blocked his path, no retort came down the hall. He walked away, each footstep echoing in a quiet hall, and when he came to the door it opened with a gentle creak into the open air. Himiko held tight to his back, still squeezing him.

"He's dead." she spoke the words as if trying to convince herself of just that, and Izuku nodded.

"He is." he agreed. "He won't hurt you ever again. Or the twins. Or anybody else. Never again."

He looked up at the sky. It was dark, late at night. Izuku staggered down the back alley, leaving a trail of blood behind him, and eventually found himself standing in front of a convenience store. He pushed the door open, the bell ringing. He heard the cashier start, looking up at him and then falling silent. She was a frumpy older woman, wearing a shapeless orange dress with streaks of grey in her brown hair. Izuku raised a hand in greeting, and the cashier stared at him in horror.

"Can I please use a phone?" he asked, and the woman handed over a cell phone without a single sound, staring at him unblinkingly all the while.

Izuku dialled the police dispatch and very calmly asked for Detective Naomasa, naming himself when asked. When the woman on the other end heard his name, she let out a sound of surprise, before shouting something to somebody else. Within moments his call was redirected, and the familiar warm tones of Detective Naomasa came over the line, coloured with a hint of panic.

"Midoriya, are you alright?" he asked, and Izuku took a moment to ponder that before answering.

"I just killed Tomura Shigaraki, my right arm is missing and I can't seem to muster up the feelings to care about either." he replied, voice a quiet deadpan. "So… maybe? I think I might go into shock soon."

Now it was Naomasa's turn to listen silently, and Izuku stood patiently, before realizing he was dripping blood all over the convenience store's tiled floor. He looked apologetically at the cashier, before walking towards the door again. Himiko pushed it open for him, and he stood outside so he could avoid making any more of a mess. Part of him wondered, distant and detached, if perhaps this wasn't something he should be taking with quite so much calm. He tried to ignore that thought for a time; he'd have to come back to it later.

"Midoriya, where are you right now?" Naomasa eventually asked, and Izuku dutifully looked at the address on the building and the nearby street sign, repeating both to him. "Alright, I'm dispatching a team and an ambulance to your location. Death Arms is in the area, he'll be coming to provide support if you need it. Stay on the line. Talk to me. Can you do that?"

He didn't sound panicked. Not quite, anyhow. He sounded concerned, Izuku was well associated with people on the phone with him sounding concerned. More than just concerned, even, downright worried. Maybe he had good reason to be. Izuku was more than aware this was a strange situation to be in. A potentially dangerous one too. And yet… he couldn't muster up any fear, or worry. Only that cool, dispassionate calm that made him wonder whether or not he was actually okay.

"I think so." Izuku replied, nodding. "I'm… I think I want to sit down. But I have to give this phone back to the lady in the convenience store. Or… I don't know, it's kinda bloody. Maybe I should buy her a new one to apologize."

Himiko giggled at that, and he heard Naomasa ask him over the phone who else was present. The question took a few moments to process, and then he nodded.

"Oh, that's just Himiko." he said. "She's just… hanging around."

He chuckled at his own joke, though it was a hollow sound. In the distance he could hear sirens, slowly growing closer. Himiko let her head fall into the crook of his neck, and he shrugged a little to help her nestle in more comfortably without really thinking about it. Naomasa was talking again, but the phone was loose in his hand and he couldn't really hear what he was saying at all.

"I think I'm going to pass out now." he announced, to nobody in particular.

And then he did.


	27. In Which Izuku Has Good Friends

Izuku Midoriya was getting a little tired of waking up in hospital rooms. It was an interesting sort of thing the first time, but after his third experience of such an awakening he had come to regard it as a little cliche. The very fact that he considered waking up in a hospital room a common, uninteresting event was perhaps a sign of his waning mental health, but he didn't exactly mind that much. His head wasn't pounding this time, at least, though it did feel a little fuzzy. He thanked the world for the little blessings in life and raised his head, blinking slowly.

The room was white, obviously, though the window was actually open. The sun was shining outside; he figured it was likely mid-morning, though the room lacked a clock with which to check. He raised his arms over his head and let out a yawn, only to pause when he only felt his left arm actually respond to the command to stretch. He turned his head that way, stared at the empty space where there was meant to be a functional, healthy (if scarred and battered) human arm, and let out a quiet sigh of surprise.

He didn't scream, because this time he could remember. He could remember sacrificing his arm, twice. First to break free, and then again to block Shigaraki's attack. Then he remembered putting his opposite hand and forearm through Shigaraki's abdomen until they emerged from the back, feeling the villain's heartbeat stop. He stared at his left hand and, for a moment, he could see the blood dripping from his fingertips, his arm stained crimson up to the elbow. Then… nothing. Just his arm, banded with scars with slightly crooked fingers. He closed his eyes and shook his head, willing himself to stop thinking about this.

The tears in his eyes weren't really there, he told himself. He had nothing to feel guilty about. Shigaraki was a monster, the world was better off without him. Izuku was better off without him, Himiko too.

The name made him blink. Himiko. Where was she? Was she safe? What about the twins?

"Hello?" he called, realizing now that he was quite alone.

It took a long moment before the door opened and a tall, thin woman stepped inside; her white hair cut in a short Uraraka-esque bob, pale grey eyes and a white nurse's uniform made her look half a ghost, but the smile on her face was as lively as those eyes as she stepped inside, clutching a clipboard to her chest. She looked him up and down, smiling even wider.

"Deku, you're awake!" she declared, sounding quite pleased with the fact. "Oh, and so soon too! We were worried you'd be out for days, but here you are! Oh, this is… I'm so sorry, where are my manners?"

She blushed, and offered him a hand to shake. Her right hand, which he stared at for a moment and automatically went to take before remembering. She winced, switching hands, and he took the left. She had a firm handshake, a strong grip, surprising for someone so thin.

"I'm Nurse Reiko." she introduced herself with a bow of the head. "You're in the Musutafu Regional Hospital. You were brought in late last night, with various injuries, but Doctor Baoko used his Quirk to hasten your recovery. I'm sure you must have questions…"

"Where is Himiko Toga?" Izuku asked, almost the moment she finished her sentence, and she started a little at his suddenness before taking a breath and nodding.

"Oh, she's… she's currently in intensive care, under police guard." the nurse replied, nodding. "She was in bad shape when you were brought in, and Doctor Baoko had already used his Quirk to its limit. Don't worry, though; she's being kept sedated, so she won't be able to…"

"Can I see her?"

Nurse Reiko paused for a moment in response, her eyes widening before she glanced at her clipboard. She didn't seem to be forthcoming with an answer, so Izuku leaned back a little in his bed.

"It's okay if I can't," he reassured her, putting on a gentle smile that slowly faded as he continued. "But… I carried her out of that mess. I need to know I didn't… I didn't mess anything else up."

She raised an eyebrow at that, before looking down at her clipboard again and reading for a moment. She also reached out into the empty air beside her, hand sitting open. A pen floated up from behind her and into her outstretched hand, and she jotted something down quickly before looking back up at him.

"I'll see what the Detective has to say, but… well, you are the Hero who captured her, so it should be okay." she said, and now it was Izuku's turn to blink.

"Captured?" he repeated, and she nodded.

"She was legally in your custody when Death Arms arrived at the scene." she explained, looking a little confused as well. "That makes her your capture. Your legal first, I'm told, so… congratulations!"

She even clapped a little, clipboard and pen floating in front of her for a moment. Izuku felt something odd inside him then, a touch of anger. But… why? Why was he upset by this? He had captured her, technically speaking. She… she wasn't a villain, but she had been. Or she was, as far as the law was concerned. Or… he shook his head. This was too much at the moment. He touched his only remaining hand to his face, a phantom pain sparking in the other arm for a moment as he tried to move it and making him wince.

"Is… is there anybody from U.A here?" he asked, and she giggled a little.

"Actually, there's five students downstairs, and a teacher." she replied. "And two babies! They've been waiting for you to wake up. Would you like to have them sent up?"

Izuku nodded, lacking the energy to say anything more. All this coping and emotional self-realization was quite tiring, he decided. He wasn't too fond of it at the moment, and it was giving him a headache anyways. Nurse Reiko smiled and walked out of the room, closing the door gently behind her without touching it. He thought about who would have come to visit. The five students… Iida and Uraraka for sure, and the other three were probably Tokoyami, Todoroki and Kacchan. And of course, the twins.

Holy shit he was a father.

The thought came like a lightning bolt. He had been tacitly aware of it ever since reading the letter from Stain, but to actually acknowledge it… Shigaraki was gone. He and Himiko and the twins were safe from him now. All his anger and rage towards the League of Villain's leader had vanished in the wake of his death. Now all Izuku felt was a gnawing sense of trepidation slowly building in his gut. He was a father now. He had barely even known his own father, and now he had two children of his own. What was he supposed to do?

He had about three minutes to panic about all of that, before the door swung open again . There was a moment or so of silence as Kacchan stood in the doorframe, wearing a t-shirt with a stylized skull on the front and cradling a tiny bundle of fabric in his arms. The expression on his face was something unfamiliar, a mix of fear, relief and joy, actual joy. He stared for a long moment, the two locking eyes, before Kacchan shook his head and walked deeper inside the room, his face settling into a much more familiar expression of general agitation. Then the bundle in his arms shifted and cooed softly, and Izuku was left stunned as Kacchan looked down, smiled fondly and shushed the baby gently.

"Hey nerd." he said, before Izuku heard the door swing the rest of the way open and he heard the slow, almost cautious gait of Todoroki and Tokoyami. The former was holding another small bundle, clearly favouring his left side as his right arm was wrapped up in bandages. He looked at Izuku, before glancing down at the baby. Then he looked back up at Izuku and nodded once as if in affirmation.

"She does have your hair." he declared, before looking at Tokoyami. "I told you."

"Midoriya's hair is not that fluffy." Tokoyami retorted, shaking his head resolutely. "I owe you nothing, for you are still incorrect."

Izuku watched as the two bickered for another moment, before Kacchan settled down in the chair beside the bed. Izuku watched him as he sat down, holding the child in his arms with a strangely delicate manner. It was strange to see Kacchan, the most abrasive person he'd ever known, walking on metaphorical eggshells.

"Will you two quit your bickering and give the nerd his fu-freaking kid?" Izuku's eyes went wide, and when Kacchan saw he scowled menacingly. "Not a word, Deku. Not a goSH-darn word."

Izuku laughed. He couldn't help it; the sound of Kacchan, of Katsuki Bakugou himself, deliberately stopping himself from swearing… it was like listening to some sort of parody cartoon of some kind. He turned to Todoroki and Tokoyami, the former simply looking at him with that usual calm expression and the latter hiding his beak behind a hand. Todoroki took a step closer, and then slowly reached out, his other hand coming up to help him hold the child better as he held that tiny form out towards Izuku.

Izuku reached out with his one arm, and Todoroki winced and gently placed the little pink bundle in Izuku's lap. Izuku took a deep breath and then, setting aside his fear, looked down.

The baby in his lap had his hair, he realized, a tuft of green sprouting from its head. But then it yawned, tiny face deforming a little with the gesture, and opened its eyes. They were a rich, golden shade of yellow, like a darker version of Himiko's own orbs. It stared up at him, and ever so slowly he reached out to gently cradle its head in his hand. It cooed at him, and he smiled down at her.

"Hi there…" he spoke, hesitantly. "I'm Izuku. Your… your father."

Something twitched under the pink of the blankets, pushing it aside, and for a minute he thought she was reaching for him with its hand, before a tiny fleshy tendril emerged from within the folds of the blanket and slowly wrapped around his wrist. He stared with wide eyes, before looking up Todoroki. The heterochromatic boy just shrugged.

"Your daughter." he said, as if introducing two friends at some kind of dinner party.

Izuku stared down at this tiny form in his lap, another tendril sliding out beside the first and wrapping around his wrist as well. He twisted himself a little, finding out quickly that picking up a baby with a single arm was quite difficult. Todoroki reached forward as if to help but his arm was intercepted by Kacchan's hand grabbing at his wrist, the blonde shaking his head.

"Let him do it." he whispered.

Izuku held his daughter in his arm, her head nestled into the crook of his elbow and two of her tendrils wrapped around his forearm, and she pressed her face against his chest and let out a soft sound of delight before her eyes closed. She was so warm, each of those little tendrils like a tiny line of heat hugging the scars on his arm. Izuku shuddered with absolute joy, his smile growing even larger, before he looked at Kacchan.

"And that's…" he looked at the baby in Kacchan's lap, and the blonde grinned.

"Your son." he said, pulling back the blankets a little to reveal a few thin strands of golden blonde hair and green eyes slowly blinking at the sight of Izuku. "You think you can handle him too, Deku?"

Izuku looked at the stump of his right arm and swallowed, before shaking his head.

"I got to hold her first," he said, looking down at his daughter, who had drifted into sleep, slowly breathing, green hair contrasting harshly with the pale blue fabric of his hospital gown. "Himiko should get to hold him first."

He could almost feel the temperature in the room drop. In fact, he could feel it drop, Todoroki unconsciously activating his Quirk. Tokoyami's eyes flared, and his shadow twisted into a very different shape for a moment until it resumed its usual shape. Kacchan was the one who reacted the least, just staring at Izuku with piercing red eyes for a long time. Izuku met his gaze, a little confused.

"What?" he asked, and Kacchan's expression turned from one of befuddlement to an agitated frown.

"The fuck are you using her first name for?" he asked, voice a low growl. "Deku, are you feeling okay?"

"I'm…" Izuku looked at the right side of his body. "I mean, I've been better, but… I feel alright, I guess. I think I'm still processing everything. Is that… what's wrong?"

All three of them stared at him for an uncomfortably long period of time, Kacchan's gaze the harshest. Izuku realized then what was happening; they didn't know. They didn't know anything that had happened in that bunker, the revelations, Himiko's torture, her assistance in his escape, his oath to her. He opened his mouth to explain, but before he could say anything the door swung open again.

Iida entered the room, one hand raised and the beginnings of a shouted greeting on his lips, before Dark Shadow surged into being and wrapped one arm around his face, a clawed hand covering Iida's mouth. Iida choked on his own words, staggering at the sudden attack, before Tokoyami, Todoroki and Kacchan all shushed him at the same time.

"His daughter's asleep, four-eyes." Kacchan hissed. "Stay quiet or I'll kill you myself."

Iida's eyes wandered over to Izuku, who nodded towards the slumbering baby in his lap, and his eyes went wide behind his glasses before he bowed his head. His shouted apology was fortunately muffled by the still-present Dark Shadow, and Iida's look of shame after that made Izuku wince just a little. Then Iida straightened up, closed his eyes for a moment, and was knocked off balance again when Uraraka charged inside the room. She came to screeching halt when she saw Izuku with his daughter in his lap, one hand coming up her face to muffle a squeak of delight at the sight. Izuku smiled at her, before feeling the baby stir and looking down to adjust her slightly.

"Names." he murmured. "You'll need names… Himiko should have her say."

The room was still quiet but once again the mood seemed to dip. Izuku said nothing; he was too happy to let his friends' consternation affect his mood. He was alive, Himiko was alive, their children were safe, Shigaraki was gone and could never hurt any of them again. He knew he was missing an arm and would likely begin feeling the ramifications of that in a while, but for now… for now he just couldn't care. Seeing his daughter, his _daughter_ slumbering in his lap with a tiny smile on her face?

What was a missing arm in the face of the joy he could feel surging up inside him?

He sat there in silence for a time, head bowed and eyes half-lidded, before looking up at Kacchan.

"The nurse said one of the teachers was here too." he said, voice low. "Is… did Aizawa-Sensei make it?"

Tokoyami's shadow twisted again, and Todoroki very deliberately made his way to the window and stared out at the city below. Poor Uraraka looked like she was on the brink of tears, and Iida visibly repressed something, an expression that seemed worryingly similar to the look in his eye when someone mentioned Stain in his presence. Izuku saw it, and he sighed when he understood.

"That's a no, then…" he said. "I… even though I… I didn't think he'd… I was hoping…"

He held his daughter a little tighter, and then felt a hand touch down on the bandaged stump of his right shoulder, holding him gently. He looked at Kacchan, who seemed almost as grief-stricken as him for a moment before he shook his head.

"He said he was proud of us." Kacchan said, before looking at the others in the room. "All of us. So don't go moping around on his behalf, he'd just get pi-ticked off and tell us we were being irrational or some shi-stuff."

"Listening to you trying not to curse is an almost dreamlike experience," Tokoyami opined suddenly, as his shadow settled down into a more natural shape. "And I am quite glad I get to experience it."

"Shut up, birdbrain." Kacchan shot back, and like that the tension in the room was defused.

"He would appreciate us moving on." Todoroki agreed, nodding slowly. "The best way to honour his memory would be to live up to his expectations of us, prove his faith was not unfounded."

Honouring his memory. Izuku looked at his son then, an idea coming to mind, and he filed it away for later. He looked down at his daughter, who had begun to stir again while Kacchan spoke, and gently rocked her a little with his arm until she settled back down. He heard Uraraka suppress another squeak, and smiled. His mind began to wander again, but it kept coming back to Aizawa. The man who had given his life so Izuku could save his son and daughter. Their mentor, teacher, guardian and, in spite of his own deliberately grouchy and detached nature, their friend.

"If Aizawa-sensei is gone," he wondered aloud. "Who's going to be our homeroom teacher?"

"That'd be me." a new voice, pitched with a curious (and familiar) affectation of an American accent, interjected from the door. "Hope y'all don't mind my fashionable lateness. Thought I might give y'all a chance to have your moment."

Snipe ambled into the room, though Izuku saw that his iconic gasmask wasn't on his face. Black hair tied in at least a dozen braids fell down onto his shoulders, and Izuku blinked when he saw the black leather eyepatch covering a presumably non-functioning left eye. His right eye was a dark brown shade, with a hint of delight somewhere inside his gaze. Snipe winked at him when he saw Izuku's eyes wander, standing tall in the doorway and leaning against the doorframe with his hands in his pockets.

"Gotta say though, you're looking pretty well put-together." he said. "All of you. And I figure you're pretty darn right about Aizawa; he was a grouch, but he cared about all of y'all, even the ones he spent most of his free time grumbling about. He'll be missed…"

Snipe bowed his head for a moment, before continuing.

"But that don't mean we can't keep on keepin' on," he declared. "So I'll be takin' over in teachin' y'all how to be heroes, and here's hopin' I can live up to his example."

The conversation took a quieter turn for a while, Tokoyami questioning Izuku on how long he would be hospital bound (Izuku explaining that he wasn't sure but he presumed he had at least another day, given his prior experiences), Kacchan asking him what he was going to name the kids (Izuku just smiled knowingly, much to the blonde's consternation) and finally Snipe reassuring Iida that Izuku would in fact not be expelled from the Hero Course for losing an arm.

"I'll just have to work twenty-five percent harder," Izuku assured his friend, which made Kacchan stifle his own laughter to avoid waking the twins. "And… are you still in contact with Hatsume Mei, by any chance?"

Iida pulled a… strange face, his head jerking to one side as if to hide his expression, and Uraraka leaned in to stage-whisper the truth to Izuku, one hand cupped to the side of her mouth and a massive grin on her face.

"They eat lunch together on Wednesdays and Fridays." she told him, making Iida turn an even deeper shade of red and begin helplessly stammering in denial. Izuku just smiled.

"Do you think you could ask her to talk to me?" he asked, and a certain realization seemed to dawn on Iida in that moment; he and everybody else in the room.

"Midoriya, I feel it is my duty as your friend to remind you that roughly eighty-percent of her projects end up exploding." Iida warned, looking at him with all traces of embarrassment gone from his face. "If you are thinking what I believe you are thinking…"

Snipe, meanwhile, had a thoughtful look on his face and his chin tucked between finger and thumb, slowly nodding. Todoroki looked… concerned, Tokoyami looked confused and Uraraka was clearly thinking about the whole idea, though she didn't exactly look as though she approved.

"I know." Izuku replied. "But if anybody can do it…"

"Power Loader would be a safer option, y'know," Snipe interjected.

"Mei can work wonders with machines," Izuku shook his head. "Power Loader's good with support gear, but if anybody can build something like this…"

"I'm feeling a little left out over here, Deku," Kacchan snapped. "What the fu-flip are you all talking about?"

Izuku looked at his oldest friend and smiled. He knew it was probably an ugly, fearsome smile, the sort of smile that you smiled when you were trying to strike fear into somebody's heart, but it was his smile and he didn't really care if it looked fearsome.

"I'm going to need two hands again some day, Kacchan." he said. "Why not get started as soon as possible?"


	28. In Which Himiko Understands

The world was black.

Also a little red, but that was okay. Himiko liked the red. It was familiar, comfortable, and it reminded her of so many good memories. And quite a few bad ones as well, but that was to be expected; red was blood, passion, burns and lipstick. It was the sunrise, sunset, the moon on foreboding nights and the mark of her greatest passion.

Second greatest passion, she corrected herself. Izu-kun and his children; they were the most important things now. Her hero and the beautiful family she made for him. That was all that mattered in her mind. Blood, killing, heroism and villainy, all of those were things of the past. She was a mother now. And she was so excited she could barely force herself to lay still!

Wait… why was she laying still? Where was she? She remembered hands on her, pulling her away from Izu-kun, pulling her towards the ambulance. She remembered Izu-kun's limp form, ragged and beautiful being pulled into the other ambulance. She remembered calling out to him, the disdain on the faces of the orderlies as they injected her with something, putting a needle in her arm…

And now here she was. Laying in the black. At least the black was soft, and warm. It felt a lot like a bed, actually.

She opened her eyes, and then hissed and closed them again. It was too bright, too white, too much light! She tried to bring her hands up to cover her eyes, but both were stopped dead in their tracks by a quiet clank and the feel of something cold and hard pressing against them. Oh, she knew this one! Cuffs! Oh, this was going to be tricky. Now, if they weren't too tight, she could just dislocate a thumb and slide free, and then pop it back in place with her mouth and get to work on the other one. It felt like two different sets of cuffs though, so she'd probably have to do that for both. Oh well, she couldn't expect the police to make things too easy!

Then she stopped, and opened her eyes to stare at the ceiling. She had to fight the urge to close them again, but she won that particular battle and started looking around. She was in a hospital room. A very empty hospital room, and the gurney was clearly built more for security and sturdiness than comfort, but that wasn't exactly surprising. They probably had her locked up because of the stabbings and such.

Being restrained in a bed brought dark, awful things bubbling inside her, old memories she wanted to will away, but instead she thought of Izu-kun's smile and his hand (only one now, she remembered) holding her shoulder and telling her she'd be okay. She smiled fondly, thoughts of her papa sinking back into her subconscious to lurk and await another chance to resurface. She wondered for a moment if Izu-kun was in the same hospital. They were picked up by the same group of ambulances, so it would make sense.

She sighed. So she couldn't just break out. If Izu-kun was here, then the babies were here, and she couldn't just run away without seeing them. A quick glance down at the blankets revealed the other, more unfortunate truth; with one foot sealed up in a heavy plaster cast and the other gone completely, she probably wouldn't be running anywhere ever again. She swallowed back the tinge of fear that thought brought on, the memory of probing hands and iron grips on her hair and shoulders and turned her attention instead to the door of the room.

There was only one, made of metal painted blue with a little observation window. She couldn't see anything of interest from her angle, except for the occasional shape of something moving through the hallway outside. She was pretty sure it would be guarded; she'd escaped custody too many times for the police to take a chance like that again. They probably even thought she'd try and hurt Izu-kun again or something. That was silly; why would she hurt her Izu-kun? She just wanted to see their babies.

"Hello?" she choked the word out, realizing a little late that her throat was far too dry to be attempting to speak.

But it was audible, and clearly somebody was listening because just a few moments later the door swung open and an elderly man in a white coat and black shirt marched inside, polished leather shoes clicking on the tiled floor. Behind him came a plain-looking man with short dark hair wearing a tan trench coat, and behind him came a police officer, a woman this time in the blue and grey uniform of a constable. Himiko watched them all come inside, the old man's approach making her squirm a bit. He had a clipboard and pen, but she knew pens could hurt a lot. Papa taught her that first.

"Ms. Toga." the man in the coat was the first to greet her, nodding once. "I'm Detective Naomasa, and these are Doctor Goyo and Officer Sero. The doctor is here to give you a quick check-up, and then I'll be asking you a few questions."

"Okay!" Toga smiled at him, and she watched with a little pang of delight as the doctor winced before standing over her.

Doctor Goyo said nothing for the entirety of his checkup; he just pulled her blankets off her legs and checked her feet, noting quietly that the stump of her left foot was mending well enough and likely wouldn't require any particular attention. He rapped his knuckles on her cast and she winced, noting with a hint of curiosity that the officer with the black hair, Sero, visibly stiffened when she did. Finally the doctor jotted down a few quick notes, nodded to the detective and stepped outside, the door closing behind him.

Naomasa cleared his throat, before pulling Himiko's blankets back down over her legs in a surprisingly kind gesture. Himiko smiled at him, a more wholesome smile that wasn't meant to freeze the blood and scare children, and he nodded.

"So, Ms. Toga… you understand the charges laid against you?" he asked, reaching into his coat and pulling out a little black notebook. "Before the Midoriya case began, you were already the prime suspect in three assaults, though all your victims survived. However… you are here under charge of the murder of Inko Midoriya and the rape of Izuku Midoriya. If you would like to plead guilty now, we could skip the courts and handle all of this out of the public eye."

Himiko lay there quietly for a time, thinking. Really thinking, not her usual 'thinking' where she vaguely considered something for about half a moment before going ahead and doing it anyway. She wasn't stupid enough to think she'd done nothing wrong. She'd seen in that cell that she'd hurt Izu-kun, hurt him badly enough that he'd wanted to hate her. That scared her more than the idea of prison; if her Izu-kun hated her, she really had nothing.

But he didn't hate her. He said so, he said he wasn't big enough to hate that much. For a moment she wondered what it was he hated so much that it took up all the room for hate inside him. She supposed that was a question to ask him later, when they had time. For now, she had questions she needed to answer.

"I hurt Izu-kun's mama," she admitted, but then she shook her head. "But I didn't kill her. I just hit her on the head and she fell over. She was… she was breathing. I checked. Shigi said no killing any of Izu-kun's family and I was already breaking one rule, I wasn't gonna break two."

Naomasa's eyes went wide and she wondered why. She watched him look at the lady officer who looked at him, and cocked her head to one side curiously. Then Naomasa looked back at Himiko.

"You're telling the truth." he said, voice low, full of disbelief. "You… you aren't lying. You're telling the truth. You didn't kill her."

"Of course not!" Himiko shook her head. "If I did, Izu-kun would hate me and our family would be ruined!"

"Ms. Toga, I don't… I don't think you're aware of what this means." he said, looking at her with one of those serious expressions adults liked to put on when they were talking about something they thought was super important. "My Quirk is called Human Lie Detector. If you lie to me, I know it, and I also know when you tell the truth. You are telling the truth right now, and people can't lie to my Quirk. It's functionally impossible."

Himiko shrugged.

"I don't wanna lie anymore," she admitted. "I didn't kill Izuku's mama. I did…"

She took a bracing breath, deep and even, and closed her eyes for a moment. Himiko was somebody who rarely regretted anything. She did what she wanted because she figured it didn't matter; people were just meat, things that didn't mean anything. They were dumb and silly and they were afraid of the sight of their own blood and all of that was silly and stupid. But Izu-kun… he was her hero. The one who had saved her. The one who had killed Shigaraki for her and for their children.

She now had one crime to regret.

"I hurt Izu-kun." she nodded. "I hurt him like… like papa hurt me and it just made things worse. And he said he didn't hate me, but… I think I hate me. I didn't want to hurt him but I wanted him and I didn't think he could…"

She wanted to hold herself, but her hands were still attached to the bed frame so she just let her head fall and sniffled a little. She didn't want to cry. She wanted to stop. But she couldn't, she wouldn't. She had to keep going. This was her crime. Her mistake. Her villainy. She would own up to it.

"I was just like papa." she whispered, staring down at the blankets in her lap and squeezing her eyes shut to try and keep the tears in them. "I hurt him and took things from him and used him and now he's gonna hurt forever like me."

She looked up at Naomasa, who was watching her with as expressionless a face as he could manage. There was something behind that mask he was wearing, but she couldn't make out what it was through the watery haze over her vision. So she sat there and waited, until he suddenly began writing in that notebook of his. His pen scratched across the paper for a long while, filling page after page, before he closed it suddenly and tucked the pen away. He turned and gestured to Officer Sero, who opened the door and stepped outside.

Then he looked back at Himiko.

"Ms. Toga…" he said, voice low. "We're going to have to re-examine the case somewhat, regarding this new information. This may take some time, during which you will be kept here. If you are well behaved, you may be unbound at some point, though the door will be guarded. Before that, however…"

Naomasa looked at the door.

"Izuku Midoriya would like to speak with you." he said. "However, pro-hero Snipe would also be in attendance to ensure Midoriya's safety. Would that be acceptable?"

Himiko nodded. That sounded wonderful. She was still a little on edge, her arms cuffed as they were, but she didn't dare say anything; she knew that would just be asking for trouble. Although… Detective Naomasa seemed nicer than most police were… maybe if she asked nicely?

"Could…" she hesitated, the shadow of her father in her head barking at her to shut her mouth, before redoubling on herself. "Could I… have a… a hand free? Or you could just cuff them behind my back… being… being stuck to the bed… it... "

Naomasa stared at her for a moment, and then took a step around the bed. He stopped just short of the cuffs however, and looked at her. For a moment, that neutral, almost disinterested mask slid away, and revealed a hint of worry.

"If I may ask…" He almost sounded like he regretted beginning to speak. "Why are you uncomfortable with restraints?"

She closed her eyes as her father whispered a hateful "Whore" into her ear, and she felt a heavy phantom weight press down on her chest as he held her down. She opened them wide again, and opened her mouth.

"If I was bad, Papa used to…" she swallowed, and Naomasa seemed to put a few prior things together before flinching, his hand slipping into his pocket and retrieving a small ring of keys. He flipped through them for a moment, and then unlocked the cuffs on her left arm. She immediately grabbed at the blanket, pulling it up higher.

She wasn't going to panic, she told herself. This man was a police detective. Papa was dead. The detective wasn't Papa. He wouldn't do anything like that to her. Naomasa watched after he unlocked her other cuff as she brought her hand up to her face and covered her mouth, muffling another of those choked whines that packed all her fear and pain into one place, though he certainly heard it still.

"Toga?" he said her name, but he sounded a mile away, down a tunnel or something, his voice echoing and bouncing off nothing inside her head.

Papa was on top of her. She was on top of Izu-kun. Papa was laughing. She was laughing. She and Papa blended together in her head, her smaller form and the shape of Izu-kun mixing as well and she let out another whine, rocking back and forth slowly. She wouldn't scream. She wouldn't cry. She was a good girl. She had to be a good girl and smile. Smile no matter what. Smile when she hurt or when she wanted to cry because that way Papa wouldn't be mad and she didn't have to sleep in Papa's bed.

"Himiko!"

She hadn't even noticed the door slamming open, but she felt an arm wrap around her, something warm pressing against her. The arm was bumpy with scar tissue, the grip trembling slightly, but she knew this feeling. The smell was familiar too, though she couldn't begin to describe it. And when she opened her eyes she knew, her relieved cry escaping her with a single choked name.

"Izu-kun…"

They held each other for a long moment, and Himiko's fear and panic began to fade away. Izu-kun was here. Like he promised. He was holding her tight and he wouldn't let her go or hurt her like Papa, he would protect her like he said. He would protect her and their family. Because he was a hero.

"I am here." he whispered, before pulling away a little, and she looked up at him and smiled. He smiled back, a small and delicate thing, and she saw behind him an unfamiliar man with one eye and a head full of braided black hair step inside, warily eyeing her closeness to her Izu-kun. The detective was also staring, and both seemed to grow even more surprised when Izu-kun beckoned the one-eyed man forward. She noticed immediately the two tiny forms in his arms, one of them squirming and squawking unhappily, and her eyes lit up.

"Snipe-sensei, could you bring them here?" Izu-kun asked, voice low.

The man, apparently Snipe (Himiko had never seen him without a gasmask on) took a tentative step forward, before reaching down. Izu-kun took one of the two babies with his arm, delicately scooping the little bundle free, and Himiko reached forward with disbelief to hold the other. She saw the wisps of blonde hair so like her own, and then the tiny little figure she held opened its eyes and she saw emerald green.

"He's beautiful…" she whispered, and Izuku smiled. "They're both… Izu-kun, they're so beautiful."

Her hands were trembling helplessly, but the fear was gone now. She only felt… well, she wasn't sure. She'd felt it before, when she'd first seen Izu-kun in that warehouse to rescue her, and when she'd first seen the twins in a half-conscious haze after the birth. But now… it felt right now, good and healthy, holding her son and seeing her daughter. Safe, away from the danger and the violence, in her arms...

"And they're safe," Izu-kun replied as if agreeing with her thoughts, showing her their daughter in his arm, who had wrapped two of those skinny tendrils around his forearm and wrist again. "Nobody will hurt them, ever. And if anybody tries to hurt them, to hurt you… I'll be there. And they'll fail."

His eyes burned with a verdant flame as he spoke, conviction as hard as steel filling his voice. And there was a quiet danger in his tone that sent shivers up her spine. She leaned in closer to him, and he didn't push her away; he even leaned back, touching his shoulder to hers. The two sat in quiet for a moment, together, safe, with their children.

Himiko wouldn't forgive herself for hurting him, she decided. Not until he forgave her. And she wouldn't dare assume he loved a broken, twisted thing like her. But she decided then that she would do whatever it took to earn that forgiveness, that love. And this time, she decided, it would be genuine and real. At first she had thought him cute and strong and safe. Now though… now she understood. Izu-kun wasn't a toy. He had never been and she sorely wished she had understood that sooner. He was a hero.

Her hero.


	29. In Which All Might Helps

"Young Midoriya."

All Might's voice no longer surprised Izuku. Few things did anymore. He looked up from his notes, copied down in the chicken-scratch mess that was his left-handed calligraphy, and looked up at the approaching shape of his mentor. He set his pencil down with a quiet sigh of relief, shaking his hand to rid some of the soreness there. He had never been ambidextrous in the slightest, so adapting to the left-handed life had proven extraordinarily difficult.

All Might sat next to him; Izuku was sat on a bench on the side of one of U.A's many walking paths, in this case one of the asphalt trails leading to the urban training grounds. He meant to catch Tokoyami on his way back from his meditation, hopefully discuss the boy's slipping math grade again and offer some tutoring. Izuku smiled; no rest for the wicked. Or the heroic, it seemed.

"Sensei," He turned toward his mentor, leaning forward a little and resting his elbow on his knee to pin his notebook and pencil in place. "I… it's good to see you."

"And you as well, my boy…" Both of them sounded more awkward than was perhaps necessary, though that wasn't necessarily surprising to Izuku. He had been avoiding this very meeting for much longer than was likely proper, though it wasn't like he didn't have a reason to. Not that it was a good reason, but still…

_I am here._

Izuku shook his head.

All Might looked healthier. It was a strange thing, that a man who had been so totally physically destroyed, driven to the limits of his strength, that such a man could somehow look healthier, but he did. His body wasn't quite so skin and bones, his face a little less sallow. Izuku had spoken to Recovery Girl about it in the past; as it turned out, the removal of One For All from All Might's body, and thereby the stress caused by his 'muscle form' had resulted in his broken form actually being able to recover somewhat from his injuries. His stomach was still fundamentally irreparable, but the rest of him was on the mend and making a good show of it, apparently.

Izuku knew he looked much less healthier; his friends worried about him, and he knew they had good reason to. Beyond the missing arm, he was even more scarred than before, with a sort of haunted light to his eyes. Tokoyami had told him he now possessed the eyes of one who 'had come face to face with common mortality, and stared deep into its soulless gaze without fear'. Dark Shadow had quietly translated that Tokoyami meant to say Izuku had both nearly died and taken a life, both very important events in his life.

Nearly dying was fine. Izuku did that all the time. That was part of being a hero.

But taking a life? He knew it wasn't unheard of. Heroes killed villains sometimes, it was almost unavoidable. Some villains couldn't be reasoned with, and in the heat of a great battle with countless lives at stake… few heroes had the power to afford their foes the same consideration as All Might. Izuku looked at the man now, sat beside him, and wondered. All Might knew what had happened to Shigaraki. Everybody in U.A's faculty did, it was something Nezu had decided to make a sort of inside-secret. As for his friends; nobody outside of Kacchan and Himiko knew. Himiko had been there, after all, and Kacchan had found Izuku in the midst of brooding and made him talk.

Izuku was still nursing a sore shoulder from that little impromptu brawl, but he had given as good as he had gotten. Catharsis and emotional stability through pitched combat; Kacchan was almost as good a therapist as Ms. Nyanja, in his own Kacchan-y way.

"All Might?" He was the first to break the silence that had fallen between the two of them. "I… I'm sorry."

All Might looked at him with those black-and-blue eyes and for a moment Izuku was back in the room, his idol beaming down at him, demanding to know why he was so weak. He swallowed, hard, an audible gulping sound accompanying the bobbing of his Adam's Apple. All Might didn't seem to notice, which was fine by Izuku. Instead the number-one hero (Endeavour didn't count, Izuku had decided) looked more confused than anything else.

"Whatever for, my boy?" he asked, voice low and head cocked to one side. "I can't imagine you have anything to apologize for. If anything…"

All Might looked away, visibly breathing in deep and perhaps bracing himself before turning back to Izuku.

"It is I who should apologize to you." he said, but before he could continue Izuku shook his head.

"No," He raised his hand, cutting off All Might's potential rejoinder. "I… I do owe you an apology. These last months have been hard. Really, really hard. But… I shut you out, and you're my mentor and the reason I can even be here and I just feel guilty for keeping you at arm's length while letting Kacchan and the others get closer and-"

"Breathe, my boy." All Might's hand touched Izuku's back, gentle and warm, and Izuku stopped talking. "I understand. I really do. I too have been making mistakes in these past months. I should have tried harder to connect with you, but… I was ashamed."

Izuku goggled.

"I was so wrapped up in the loss of my power and concern about Shigaraki's origins I neglected to realize just how much you were suffering," All Might continued. "And you have paid the price for my mistake. There was so much I could have done, so much I should have done… but I left it to your classmates to do what I would not and for that I am truly ashamed."

There was silence between the two for a time, a quiet that permeated the air around them and gave them both much-needed time to think. For Izuku, it was a matter of figuring out just what to say and how. He hadn't thought of how All Might might feel, only how best to apologize to his mentor for his mistakes. Hadn't he failed him, after all? He had taken One For All, a power of symbolizing peace, and used it to kill somebody, to drive his hand through Shigaraki's body. Perhaps it was self defence. Perhaps he had saved the lives of others by ending that one. Perhaps, perhaps and maybe. Nothing but possible answers. Nothing concrete, nothing that could truly set him at peace.

So he examined All Might's gaunt face, looking at it and trying to read his mentor's expression. All Might looked thoughtful, peaceful in a way, clearly deep in his own mind. He was gnawing on his bottom lip, and his eyes were narrowed, staring down at a single spot on the cement of the path. Finally, he released his lip, and breathed.

"Young Midoriya, I believe we have both made mistakes." he finally spoke, voice low. "I think I have failed you, and as much as I don't believe it you think you have failed me. As such, we are at an impasse."

Izuku nodded, not sure of what to say.

"Therefore, I propose we both apologize." All Might concluded. "And to decide who goes first… rock paper scissors."

Izuku goggled again, and All Might smiled as he raised a fist. Izuku continued to stare for a moment, before shaking his head and smiling rather reticently, raising his own hand and clenching it into a fist.

"On three." Izuku nodded, and the two shook them three times.

On the third shake they revealed their play; Izuku went with paper, and All Might chose rock. There was a moment of quiet, before All Might nodded. He took another moment to think, before breathing deep and starting.

"Young Midoriya… no, Izuku… I am sorry." he said, placing a hand on Izuku's shoulder. "I failed you, as a mentor, as a hero and perhaps worst of all as a friend. I hope you can forgive me."

Izuku teared up, blinking rapidly before placing his own hand on All Might's shoulder and taking a deep breath.

"All Might… Toshinori, I'm sorry." he said, head bowed "I failed you. As a student, a successor and… as a friend. I-I… I hope you can forgive me."

"You are forgiven." All Might declared, and Izuku felt some of that weight that had been sitting firmly in his stomach since waking up in the hospital for the first time three months ago lift away, gone forever as his guilt and shame was at least partially alleviated.

"And-and I forgive you!" he replied, perhaps a little too loudly, hand clenching tight on All Might's bony shoulder.

"Thank you." they said, simultaneously, before pausing.

Then All Might laughed. It was a familiar laugh, the booming chuckle that heralded his coming so many times in his golden years. And Izuku joined, his own laughter a softer sound. The two laughed together for a few moments, before All Might seemed to sober up, swallowing back the last of his laughter and reaching behind his back.

"There is another matter I must bring to your attention, Izuku." he said, pulling from his back pocket a plain white envelope, quite unassuming but for the familiar scrawled handwriting on the front. "I have here a sealed letter from Aizawa. He requested that in the event of his untimely passing, it be given to you. There's some weight to it, though I'm not sure what's inside."

Izuku took the envelope and held it in both hands, holding it close to his chest. He felt another rush of tears he was forced to blink away, before closing his eyes for a long few seconds. Perhaps… he shook his head. He couldn't delay. This was something Aizawa-sensei had wanted him to see. He reached down and peeled the envelope open, taking care with the letter inside. It was another plain, unassuming thing, once again made special by the familiar shaping of the letters and the cadence of the words within.

Izuku took it, raised it to eye level, and began to read.

_Problem Child,_

_If you're reading this, then I'm sorry. I told Nezu to burn it when you graduated and were officially out of my hair, so either the mouse is up to something or I'm dead. I doubt even Nezu would be that cruel, however, so it must be fate instead. _

_And so, I'm sorry. I died on you. I'm not sure how it happened; either the family penchant for liver cancer somehow caught up to me or some villain finally got lucky. I hope it was the latter; at least then it was quick. I hope I didn't die in front of you, but after USJ I don't count myself as being that lucky. If you saw it happen… don't let it haunt you. I have every confidence you did everything you could to save me. That's the kind of boy… no, that's the kind of hero you are. _

_Don't spend too much time mourning me. Make sure to talk to your friends, handle all the emotional things, but don't get hung up on me. Heroes die. It's a part of life. I'm sorry I died before I could hand you your official Heroics License, but more than that I'm sorry I died before I was done teaching you. You've probably still got plenty to learn, and now I'm not there to instruct you. They've probably replaced me. Either it's Mic or it's Snipe. If it's Mic, tell Jirou I'm sorry. If it's Snipe…_

_Either way, you're in good hands. They'll teach you what I couldn't, guide you now that I can't. More than that, they'll make sure to work you to the bone. If they don't, tell them they're disappointing me, that'll get them back in gear. _

_I'm including in this letter a key to my room at the dormitories. Chances are, Nemuri and Hizashi already emptied it out. But they don't know everything. Check the compartment under the fifth floorboard to the left from the window. Right up against the wall. Open it from the wall side, slowly and gently, or you'll trigger the flashbang and alarm. You really don't want to trigger the alarm; it's a recording of Mic singing Celine Dion playing back at max volume through a wireless speaker. Jirou and Shouji would kill you, if Mic's falsetto didn't. _

_Inside is something for you, something for Eri and something for Mic. You'll know which is which._

_Speaking of Eri, I have a selfish request for you. She'll be in Mirio's care; we discussed that ahead of time between us, in case of something like this happening. But… help him take care of her. I know you've got twins to take care of, but Eri deserves all the nice things in the world, including my other Problem Child. If anybody hurts her, destroy them and salt the ashes so I can destroy them again in the afterlife._

_That's all I have to write, I suppose. Take good care of those kids of yours. And don't you dare name one after me or I'll find a way to haunt you, I swear. Give Eri a hug from me. _

_Signed, Shouta Aizawa, AKA Eraserhead. _

_PS: I will always believe in you. _

The letter crumpled in Izuku's hand for a single moment before he forced it open again, fingers unclenching and freeing the now wrinkled paper from his iron grasp. He blinked, once, then twice, cursing the burning behind his eyes as his ever present Midoriya tears began to fall. He felt a hand touch down on his shoulder, long-fingered and bony. All Might said nothing as Izuku's head dropped, his eyes squeezed shut and he began to weep bitter tears of loss and grief.

That hand stayed on his shoulder for some time. When Izuku opened the small metal box hidden in the floorboards of Aizawa's dormitory, fingers squeezed gently to calm the boy's nerves. When Izuku began to cry again, holding in his hand a coiled length of capture scarf bleached the same white as the lines on Izuku's hero suit, All Might's hand was a warm reminder that he was not alone in his grief. When Izuku held in his arms a weeping Eri, mourning with him, All Might held them both in thin arms and wished sorely there was more he could do.

It was hours later, after the sun had set and the tears had all but dried up, that Izuku and All Might sat atop the roof of the Heights Alliance dormitories together. Izuku stared out at the night sky, and All Might at his protege, who rested on the edge of the rooftop with one leg dangling off the edge, the other curled underneath him. His green eyes sparkled with the reflections of the many distant lights, his breathing slow and steady. The capture scarf, his gift from Aizawa, was hung loose around his neck in a style that mimicked his late teacher.

"I am glad I chose you, Young Midoriya," All Might said suddenly, knowing somewhere inside that it needed to be said. "More than you could ever know."

Izuku said nothing, because there was nothing to say. He simply smiled and it was a delicate thing, frail like glass. But it was a smile. A real smile. The sort of smile All Might wore as much as possible when he was a hero.

"Furthermore," All Might continued. "Should you ever need assistance of any sort with… the twins, would be honoured to do whatever I can."

Izuku nodded.

"Shouta." he said suddenly, voice soft and full of a strange sort of wonder. His expression had shifted, from a smile of gentle joy to a look of slowly dawning realization. "His name is Shouta. And her name is Inko."

"Fine names," All Might declared. "Very fine names."

"And if I ever have another son, I'll name him Toshinori." Izuku added, looking now at All Might with a hint of mischief on his face. "That way, I cover the three greatest heroes of my life."

"I suppose I could not ask for a better legacy," All Might replied, clapping a hand against his protege's shoulder. "Young Shouta and Young Inko…"

Izuku turned his eyes back to the stars.

"My joy from the pain," he said, voice soft. "Like mama always said."

"Your mother used to say what, exactly?" All Might asked, and Izuku closed his eyes and remembered.

"Pain comes from joy," he recited. "And joy comes from pain. Two sides to a single coin. It's the way things work, she said. When you're happy, the pain hurts more. When you're suffering… the joy is all the sweeter. Dad leaving was the pain after he got her away from her family. And then I was her joy, she said… after my dad left."

"I had always wondered why I had never met your father," All Might reflected. "I thought it impolite to ask, however."

"He left when I was two," Izuku said, a curious nostalgia in his voice. "I don't really remember him. I remember warmth, and a crackling fire, and arms around me. Not my mom's arms, though, these were harder and stronger. Mom said that we had a fireplace in our old house, before he left; it was his favourite place to sit with me, in front of a big fire, nice and warm. She said he would stare into it for hours, while I napped on his lap…"

Izuku trailed off, and All Might noted that the reflections of stars weren't all that were glinting in his eyes now. The boy blinked away the building tears, however. All Might was perhaps a little grateful; he was quite fond of Izuku, and his affection was perhaps rather fatherly by now, but the frequency of his tears was simply absurd.

"I won't be like him." Izuku said suddenly, voice wrought with a conviction All Might recognized quite well. "I won't leave them. Even if they… even if Shouta is Quirkless, I won't leave them. I'll do what my dad couldn't."

"You are a good man, Izuku." All Might replied, patting his protege's back. "And I daresay you will be a good father as well."

The two sat there in silence for a time then, quiet and reflective. All Might was, for his many talents, not particularly gifted in the art of psychoanalysis, so he wasn't able to simply read Izuku's expressions. But even in spite of that he knew worry when he saw it; it was deeply familiar to him. He said nothing, however, for there was nothing much to say. This was not a battle he could guide Midoriya in. This was ground he did not know; All Might had no children, he had never been a father.

But he had faith in Izuku Midoriya. He had chosen the boy, who had more than proven equal to the task at hand. Now he simply had to keep that faith, hold to it, and trust that with the help of his friends Young Midoriya could pull through.

After all, Izuku was a Hero. The Hero That Can Do It.

And finally, he was here.

_End Part One: To Suffer the Most_

**AN: And on to Part Two! That's a wrap, folks, at least for now. This story was just about always planned to split into different parts, each focused on a different primary arc for the sake of storytelling efficiency. Consider this the end of Season One, in anime terms, with Season Two starting soon-ish. There's a couple other projects I will want to work on first, like as not. **

**Thank you to all of you who have taken the time to read this far. I never really expected this story to amount to much; it was a dark idea I came up with on a whim and started putting to digital paper while sat on a bus. That it has gone so far as to reach over 380 followers, 277 favourites and 184 reviews, not to mention the almost 75,000 views… **

**It's pretty crazy to me that something like From The Joy could have reached this level. So once again I thank you all, each and every one of you from random internet browsers perhaps confused as to how you got here to my most dedicated reviewers. **

**Also, big thanks to Unsettling-A.I.R for putting up with wildly different time zones and my nonsensical work schedule to help me edit this mess. These last few chapters would have suffered without his feedback, I think, and the story is better for having him.**

**Well… that's all I've got, folks. Once more I thank you all, and I hope you'll come back when we continue with From The Joy Part Two: To Play With Fire!**


	30. In Which Dabi Receives An Offer

It was too goddamn noisy in here. The lights were dim, but he had been told by a man he knew now was a damn liar that things would be nice and quiet. Instead, the place was bustling with activity, nearly every booth and table seating several patrons. He didn't know most of these faces, though he recognized one or two. Villains, low level street punks like Bedazzle and Longshock, the sort of cannon fodder miscreants Shigaraki would've used as meat shields in one of his bigger raids. They were sat all around at tables and in booths, sipping shitty beer and talking about their inconsequential little crimes, bragging about petty robberies and muggings.

Dabi hated this place. It was the sort of shit bar he would have skipped out on completely if it hadn't been for the promise of a safe place to drink. He was a wanted man still, and with Shigaraki missing, Compress in prison and Kurogiri vanished into thin air, he was one of the only League members left on the wanted lists, pushing him up much higher than he was used to. Usually arson cases netted you a mid-grade ranking, but with the Yakuza in free fall and the League completely broken...

Dabi took another sip of the watered down piss this hole called beer and sighed. It had been a halfway decent run at first; strike a little fear into the hearts of their foes, break a couple heads here and there, get people talking... Japan had just started to understand the danger the League represented. And then...

"Tomura fucking Shigaraki."

The words were spoken in a murmur, a near-silent remark on a dead man. Dabi wasn't sure how it had happened; Toga might have knifed him one, maybe Twice finally snapped, or hell; Deku could've gone off the deep end. Heroes killed. Not a lot, but it was known to happen. Some more than others.

Others much more still.

Fire on his back and in his hands. A promise to remember. He sighed and took another drink, closing his eyes and doing his level best to wash the memories away, back into the pitch black sinkhole of his subconscious. The bar's noise was fading a little. Good. This was beer number three; maybe he was finally getting a buzz going, drowning out some of that infernal racket. Or was it beer number four? He had started to forget the little things like that more often.

The table shook, and he opened his eyes to see a girl sitting opposite him. A little thing, the sort of skinny that told him she was hungry rather than petite. Mousy looking, cute in a plain sort of way, face half hidden behind messy pink hair the colour of reds washed with whites. He stared at her with cold eyes for a moment, and she managed to meet his gaze for about half a second before looking down at the table. She was wearing a puffy red jacket; made sense in January, at least for a normal person. It was stained and clearly well worn, but it looked warm enough.

Dirty fingers nervously danced in her lap. He couldn't see them but he knew the type well enough to understand she was fidgeting. He cast an idle eye about the bar to see if she wasn't here with a group, but the absence of any giggling girls her age told him she wasn't doing this on a dare. He turned his eyes back to her and she looked down again, letting out a tiny squeak.

"What do you want?" he asked, deadpan.

She moved her lips but words didn't come out for a few moments, and she closed them again. They opened, she made more lip movements without any sound, then they closed. She repeated that three times, but in the fourth time around she managed to whisper something he couldn't quite make out.

"Say that again." he said. "Louder."

She swallowed, closed her eyes, and turned her head a few degrees upward to stare at the table in front of his beer, rather than the table in front of her chest.

"You-you're... Dabi..." she whispered. "You're… amazing…"

Dabi stared at her for a moment, saw the red flush in her cheeks and the way she couldn't even look at him in the eye, then hiked a thumb over his shoulder.

"Not in the mood for fangirls." he said. "Beat it, kid."

"Oh, Brand, darling, I told you to stick to the script!"

A new voice called out, much louder than Dabi or the girl, before a man sauntered up to the table with a worryingly sensual sway in his hips. A tall man, thin and wiry wearing a long grey trench coat left undone at the front so Dabi could see he was wearing a black button up shirt underneath. The man's hair was a shock of yellow the same shade as straw, his eyes a bizarrely vivid orange. His hand slapped down on the table as he slung himself into the booth beside the girl, who squeaked with surprise and slid all the way up against the wall, as if hiding herself from the man.

He wasn't familiar to Dabi, not really, which meant that he had never really met this man before. Dabi had a decent head for faces, and this guy was pretty memorable in all the ways the interesting ones usually were. So he took another long sip from his shitty beer and laid it back down on the table, blue eyes narrowing as he stared the stranger down.

"Script?" he repeated, and the blond man's smile grew unnervingly wide.

"Oh, just the usual recruitment spiel," he said, giving the word 'spiel' the same intonation most people reserved for words such as 'fuck' and 'shit' all while waving his hand in a dismissive sort of way. "But Tri-Blaze said you were way too important for that crap, so Brand and I, she's Brand by the way," he gave the girl's arm a good shake, inciting a flinch from her, before slapping the table again. "Came up with something a lot more interesting."

Dabi idly noted he could smell something off in the air, something strangely like the metallic stink of kerosene. He said nothing, however, simply bringing his beer back up and sipping from it. Both Brand and the stranger watched him do so, the former with that same quiet intrigue in her eyes and the latter with expectation plain in his gaze.

"Recruitment for what?"" Dabi asked.

"That's where things get interesting…" the stranger put his hands together and then set them flat on the table, and Dabi noticed the right was covered by a glove made of something that looked like white silk. "Ever heard of a little group called the Inferno Assembly?"

Dabi had; there weren't many people like him who hadn't. In the time before All Might, they had been one of the most fearsome villain gangs, alongside groups like Red Sun Rising and the Black Metal Coalition. Defined by their membership being limited to fire Quirks and users thereof, they had burnt down at least half of Tokyo once upon a time. Nowadays, though? Dabi never heard anything about them. Nobody did.

"Here and there," he admitted, shrugging. "It isn't like they've done much lately."

"Yeah, All Might kinda put a damper on our activities…" the stranger admitted, shrugging. "But the boss lady figures that with him retired and a dumpster-burn like Endeavour front and centre, the Assembly could come back in a big way."

"And what do I have to do with a bunch of washed up arsonists wanting to get their rocks off by burning down office buildings?" Dabi asked bluntly, looking the man right in those unnervingly bright blue eyes. "The last two villain organizations that tried to make waves got shut down hard. Yakuza's been knocked out and the League is gone. What makes you think you'll fare any better?"

The stranger's smile changed then. Formerly it had been mischievous and cunning, a trickster's grin. Now though… his eyes darkened, and there was real malice behind that smile. The girl named Brand shivered, and Dabi saw her pull her hands back into her pockets.

"Yakuza got too auspicious," the stranger declared. "And the League was run by a nutjob playing kingpin. The Assembly's different. We don't wanna stamp out Quirks or rebuild the world or some shit… we just wanna set it all on fire and piss on the ashes."

"Burn it, burn it, burn it all…" the girl whispered in a sing-song way, Dabi straining a little to hear her. "Every brick and beam…"

"Every fuckin' beam…" the stranger echoed, before pointing at Dabi with a finger sheathed in white silk. "So… you in?"

Dabi finished his beer. Given that he had half a glass left, that took a little while, and both Brand and the stranger watched him with baited breath and expectant eyes. Brand looked fit to burst with excitement, or perhaps concern, fidgeting in her seat. The stranger just smiled, back to the mischievous grin of the previous two minutes as if he hadn't just shot Dabi a look that could kill a man stone dead.

Dabi set his glass down with a clunk. All around them, the bar seemed quieter, though there was still a buzz of a few dozen conversations lost to the haze of the beer and the general exhaustion that lingered deep inside him. He was so fucking tired. Tired of villains. Tired of heroes.

Tired of fire.

"_You promised,"_ said the voice of a dead boy, one that only he could hear, one that only he had ever heard. "_You said you'd make him burn. You promised me."_

"No dice." Dabi said aloud, standing up and sliding out of his booth. "I see what you're trying to do. And I'm done playing flunky. I've gone solo."

Brand looked disappointed, her eyes drooping. Then, much to Dabi's interest, a wash of fear seemed to overcome her, and she shivered in the way only the truly terrified could. The stranger, meanwhile, just sighed.

"Then you'd better skedaddle," he warned, voice amused. "This place is primed to blow."

Dabi smelled it again, then; something flammable in the air itself, slowly growing thicker and ever more cloying. He took an involuntary step back, suppressing the innate desire to start a fire, and the stranger smirked at his reaction before walking to the door. Brand followed, hugging herself with her hands, and Dabi watched them both walk away before following.

Right as he reached the door, the stranger turned around, throwing his arms wide as if about to embrace the entire room. He turned his head up and smiled again.

"Ladies and gentlemen, a moment if you will!" he called, drawing the attention of every man and woman present, several dozen heads turning to look at him where he stood before the only visible exit. "I have some exciting news to share with you all, concerning a most esteemed establishment of villainous origin!"

Nobody said a word, and slowly he folded his left arm behind his back while raising his right, his hand flexing in front of his face before he raised his index finger and pointed to the ceiling.

"Perhaps you've heard whispers and rumours and hearsay, but I have been sent by the esteemed Emberette to clear the air completely!" He chuckled at that, while Dabi eyed one of the windows and began edging towards it. "Our long-dormant organization is happy to announce that we will be making a resurgence, given the current climate, and we do hope you're as excited as we are to see our explosive rebirth!"

People began to stand now, the one-eyed man who was also the bartender reaching under his bar to search for something with his hands, but Dabi realized what was coming. He knew the man now, by his frankly disgustingly obvious modus operandi. The flamboyant gestures, the scent of kerosene, the white fucking glove...

"The Inferno Assembly sends its fondest regards!" Snapdragon, a man wanted on no less than thirty-four confirmed cases of arson, shouted as he brought his thumb and middle finger together. "Thank you… and good night!"

He snapped his fingers and Dabi hit the window shoulder first, throwing himself free of the bar as the snap-hiss-roar of something igniting filled the air behind him. The resultant blast of heat sent him flying, tumbling across the abandoned midnight street in a wash of glass shards and smoke. He hit the pavement with a heavy thud, and did his best to roll away from the building before coming to a dead stop atop the yellow line in the middle of the road. He sat up and looked at the bar, seeing that it was quite intensely ablaze, with tongues of red and yellow licking out of the broken windows. The fire reflected off the countless glass shards scattered in the street, turning the whole road into a sort of bizarre mural.

Dabi pulled himself up to his feet, dusting off his singed jacket and watched the fire he hadn't started burn away for a time. It was painfully familiar to see, the promise he'd made echoing in his head before he turned away.


	31. In Which Snipe Teaches (Part 1)

"Howdy, all."

Class 2-A instinctively snapped to attention at the sound of their new homeroom teacher's voice. Karyoku Roku, or rather Snipe to the vast majority of the population, stepped into the room with little flourish or flair; his decorative spurs were jingling a little, but there was no panache to how he moved. He ran a finger along the polished butt of his lucky ten-shooter, holstered now at his hip.

"I don't suppose I'll need to say much to introduce myself, considering y'all dealt with me for a month before winter break," Snipe continued, his masked face slowly scanning the room. "It's January now, and y'all have made it to the second year of school. Well... most of y'all. You may notice a few of these faces have changed. That was Vlad and I's meddlin', so don't worry too much about it."

He glanced towards Class 2-A's new transfers; the ethereal Reiko Yanagi, her pale hands folded on the desk before her, cold eyes staring straight ahead at the back of a rather tense-looking Sero's head. Darksome Shihai Kuroiro, fidgeting a little in his seat and fiddling with a pencil as he tried to ward off his boredom. And the furtive Kinoko Komori, so easily forgotten, eyes hidden behind a bob of hair and head ducked down.

Beside her sat Izuku Midoriya, with one sleeve dangling loosely from his shoulder. Beside him sat a protective Ochaco Uraraka, and to his front Katsuki Bakugou was glaring at the chalkboard. Behind him Iida Tenya watched with a stern expression, focused as always on the teacher. Snipe smiled to see them all together again, even if circumstance had nearly pushed them apart.

"To the new members of 2-A; welcome aboard." he continued. "And to the old, welcome back. I'm lookin' forward to teaching' all y'all about heroism as it ought to be, and trainin' you to be the best you can. Any questions 'fore we get started?"

Iida's hand rose, as Snipe had expected. He pointed a single finger Iida's way, but before the boy's mouth opened he raised his thumb on that hand. The boy went silent, until Snipe depressed his thumb again.

"Will we be attending the opening speech this year?" he asked, and Snipe chuckled.

"I'm 'fraid not," he replied, shaking his head. "Heroes don't got too much time for formalities, 'specially when y'all probably stuffed yourselves with turkey and eggnog over Christmas break. Nah... we're openin' the year the 2-A way."

He pointed to the door.

"Training Ground 16, in ten minutes." he commanded. "Gym strip on, stretched and ready to go. Midoriya,"

He cast an eye toward the green-haired student, who looked at him with a glint of curiosity in his eyes. Snipe nodded.

"You stick around for just a second longer." He looked back to the rest of the class and drew his pistol. "Now git."

He fired his gun into the air. The blank banged loudly but only startled the class, leaving the ceiling hole-free as everyone scrambled to their feet and made a break for the door. It was a mad scramble to get going as he ordered, and as they ran he sat down atop his desk at the front of the room with a sigh.

Midoriya approached, stance and bearing almost cautious in the way each step hesitated for a microsecond, his expression guarded. Snipe smiled at him, inscrutable behind his mask.

"That new gadget of Mei's ready for the road?" he asked, and Midoriya nodded once, a smile cracking that careful facade. "Damn good. Can't wait to see it in action."

"Was that all, Snipe-sensei?" Izuku asked, and Snipe shook his head.

"After we're done out there, I want you to get together Bakugou, Todoroki and Tokoyami." he stated. "UA's tryin' a new program that we think you four'd be perfect to test for us, on account-a your above-average experience and ability. Sound like somethin' you'd be interested in?"

"It's Monday, Snipe-sensei." Midoriya replied, frowning a touch. "I... have other arrangements after school."

"Ah, that don't concern," Snipe shrugged. "Meetin' should only take a fiver at most. It's real simple stuff. Can you make it?"

Midoriya's eyes narrowed, his hand coming up to rub the bottom of his chin with his left thumb. He stood there in silent consideration for a moment, before nodding once.

"I won't miss my bus," he admitted. "I'll tell them."

Snipe gave Izuku a pat on the shoulder as he stood up, before leading the boy to the door. Nothing more needed to be said; Snipe knew where Midoriya was headed, and Midoriya had the information he needed. The green-haired boy disappeared into the men's changing room a few minutes later, while Snipe made his way toward Training Ground Sixteen with his hands in his pockets, whistling a song about Arizona Rangers and the iron on their hips.

By the time he got there, eighteen of his twenty students had arrived. He excused Midoriya's lateness in his head; he knew that the boy getting ready would take some time. But Bakugou's lateness was more confusing than that. The blonde was usually a little too eager to partake in any sort of physical training event. Particularly the potentially violent ones.

Then the two exited the school and Snipe understood.

The two walked side by side, both in the red white and blue of UA's gym uniforms. First came Bakugou, hands in his pockets and an unusually bright expression on his face, a grin that was as savage as it was gleeful. And behind him came Midoriya, who was fiddling with his hand. An impossibility on a regular day, because Midoriya only had one arm. But on a day like this, he had two again.

True, one hand was made of grey polymer and glinting steel, but a hand it was nonetheless, unmistakable in shape and motion. Four fingers and a thumb, jointed as a hand should be, twitching and twisting, curling into a fist and then extending out into a knife hand, thumb tucking and untucking smoothly. Midoriya was holding his metal wrist with his hand of flesh and bone, as if to stabilize it.

Then he punched his metal arm out to the side, and there was a quiet whirring as he began moving it in a circular motion at the shoulder. The rest of the class stared as Midoriya joined them, a rare smile on his face, and then looked to Snipe.

"If you've all had your share of gawkin'..." he chastised them lightly, before pointing to the familiar mimicry of a demolished city in front of them. "It's time for today's exercise. I ain't gonna play no mind-games with you; there ain't no winning or losing here. I'm just tryin' ta figure out exactly how rusty y'all have gotten since we last did somethin' like this. Alright?"

The class sounded out with a sound general affirmation, a few looking suitably embarrassed by their previous staring. Midoriya nodded, while Bakugou shouted a profanity-filled 'yes' while clenching his fists.

Snipe drew his revolver, spinning it in his hand a few times before bolstering it again. Then he pointed two fingers; one at Bakugou, the other at the bubblegum pink Mina Ashido, who looked just a little nervous when she realized who else was being pointed at.

"Ground Zero and Pinky," Snipe said. "You two're team one."

He continued to point out students. Solemn and quiet Todoroki was paired with the jovial, light-hearted Kaminari. Kuroiro, apparently given to solitude, was sent to join Iida, a team player at heart. Ochaco was paired with Reiko, in a hope that the earnest brunette could break through the latter's strangely lonesome nature.

Then he pointed to Midoriya and Komori, and watched with confusion as the former winced while the latter stiffened up in a clear display of fear. His head cocked to one side, but then he frowned, pointing to Jirou and Kirishima. Whatever issue Midoriya and Komori had, it would be settled today.

Midoriya, meanwhile, was in a strange place mentally. He had just put on the brand new Crescendo Mark Four, named so because Crescendo Marks One through Three had all failed, the first catastrophically. It had been a learning experience for both himself and Mei, but he had confidence in the Mark Four. It was sturdier than Three, more flexible than Two and hadn't exploded when he tried to rotate his shoulder the way One had. This all had him feeling quite happy.

But then he looked to the silent girl beside him, the diminutive and nervous Kinoko Komori, and he had to swallow back a surge of guilt that rushed into his chest and made a game of grabbing for his heart. He had done wrong by her in a panic last year, and this was the first time they had met face to face since.

"Komori?" he began, voice a little more hesitant than he had wanted. "I'm ready when you are."

He hoped she would understand the double meaning behind his words. She simply nodded once, before looking up at him with eyes hidden behind her bangs.

"A-are we... n-never mind..." She returned her gaze to the asphalt at their feet and Midoriya frowned, before reaching out and touching her shoulder.

This was the wrong move. She flinched away first and foremost, letting out the tiniest squeak of surprise and, much to Midoriya's horror, fear. He recoiled as well, like he'd been burned. He knew that sound and that reaction. She was afraid of him, the way he had been afraid. She thought he wanted to hurt her.

"Komori..." he began, scrambling for words. "I... I'm sorry."

Snipe fired a shot into the air, another blank rather than a bullet. Izuku had learned the difference. He called for the teams to gather up, before pointing to the far end of the city.

"Half of y'all are gonna head that way." he said. "One partner from each team. Your objective in this exercise is simple. In hero work, it's a common problem for two teammates to end up separated during an event. So I'm gonna have y'all split up just like that. Then I'm gonna fire this here gun and y'all are gonna find one another. With one 'little' tic."

He pressed a button on the remote in his jacket pocket, and the ground shook for a few seconds, rattling the entire class as a colossal zero-pointer robot surged into the open air, emerging from one of the destroyed buildings. It was monstrous, and a little upgraded from its last time facing heroes. Its chest bristled with three large rotary cannons that looked more or less like upsized miniguns, while its hands had gargantuan scooping claws that clanged together with ruthless force. The class stared at it for a long moment, most of them more stunned and confused than afraid.

"That there is our prime obstacle." Snipe declared, grinning. "Say hello to Zero-One: Warhound. She may look familiar, which is good, but I can assure you; Power Loader and I worked hard to make sure she's just a mite better than your last encounter with 'er. Those rotary cannons fire rubber bullets at two-hundred a minute, with laser guided accuracy. I don't recommend spending much time in the open air if you can manage, unless you like getting knocked down and out."

Snipe pointed his pistol and fired one of his red AP bullets, which bounced off the heavy green glacis plate covering the titan's chest.

"She's faster, smarter and better armoured than any of the other Zero-Ones, aside from her brothers of course." Snipe continued. "So don't go thinking you can smash her up the way Midoriya did to her last year."

Midoriya froze at that, before looking at him with wide eyes. It couldn't be, he reasoned. Snipe just chuckled.

"Same one, Deku," he declared. "You gave us a whole lot of room to experiment, given that half her upper body was scattered all over the training ground."

He holstered his pistol.

"Oh, and one other detail of note." Snipe continued. "Y'all are competin' here, in truth. First team to rally up don't gotta do chores for a month. Last team takes the first team's chore duty for said month. Sound fair?"

There were no complaints, and several students (Kaminari very much among them) lit up with grins at the thought of a month chore-free. Snipe let out a low chuckle himself, before crossing his arms and nodding.

"Alright, split up now." he commanded. "At the designated start points you'll find some lovely little halves of doohickeys Power Loader threw together. When you find your partner, click your doohickeys together and that'll log you as finished. Don't lose your doohickey though, or else you're disqualified. Got it?"

The class once again declared their affirmation, before teams began to split, heading either to the far end or the entrance. Warhound loomed over it all, guns lazily tracking a few students but not yet opening fire. Snipe would have to press a button for that. He also had a couple other buttons for fun.

So he climbed up to the top of a nearby ruin, one of the highest in the training ground, and pulled out a tablet. He waited until the camera footage on it showed both sides to be ready, then grinned.

"Showtime!"

He fired one more blank in the air as he pressed the other button, and Warhound let out a terrible roaring sound from a set of inbuilt speakers, a noise deliberately modelled after some science fiction monstrosity from one of Power Loader's old games. Warhound looked less like a giant black space-crawfish and more like a zero pointer with some upgrades, but the spirit was certainly the same as she began to slowly grind forward through the city, guns tracking back and forth as they searched for targets.

Snipe leaned back and touched a finger to his ear, opening a communications line with Nezu.

"We're goin' live," he warned, and he heard his boss giggle delightedly over the radio. "You ready for a show?"

"Always." Nezu assured him. "I'll be releasing the Iron Legion as soon as they look to be winning, alright?"

"Works for me," Snipe replied. "Just remember not to bully them too bad, alright?"

"Bullying?" Nezu laughed. "I prefer... educating."


	32. In Which Snipe Teaches (Part 2)

Giant robots and rival classmates. This was a familiar sight to Shouto Todoroki, more familiar than any other these past few months.

If one had taken the time to ask Class 1-A's heterochromatic loner how he felt about the results of the last six months, he wouldn't have been able to answer in a particularly quick fashion. He was still asking himself the same question, after all.

It seemed impossible to him that such crimes as Toga's could be forgiven. Murder and the absolution thereby forgotten, there was still the rape. The irreversible damage to Midoriya's mind and soul she had caused enraged Todoroki, because it was at once a devastation familiar yet alien to him. He knew what it was to be hurt, deeply, irrevocably... and he also knew what it was to absolve the source of that hurt. But Toga...

His fingers tensed, hands curling into fists. He did not make them adapt that shape; they took to it naturally. Anger was common to him now, a raging heat constantly burning away beneath the icy facade he had erected for years. He wasn't even certain what it was he was angry at; Toga? Midoriya? His father? The world? Nothing seemed to directly spark his ire into being. It simply was... and so he hated.

The ground shook, reminding him of the behemoth of steel hunting him. The Warhound was on the hunt, and he needed to focus. He took a breath. In. Out. Another. Push down the fire. Bury it in ice, he told himself. Apathy was better than anger. He had an exercise to win.

His partner he considered for only a moment. Kaminari. A middling student, both written and practical. Free-spirited, quick to laughter. Close friends with Sero, and friendly towards Ashido, Kirishima and Bakugou. Formerly a partner to the juvenile antics of Mineta, before the latter's removal from Class 1-A. Expulsion, full on, and a lawsuit for good measure. The irritating midget had gone, and with him many of Todoroki's more consistent headaches.

Back to Kaminari. Could he rely on the blonde to reach him? His Electricity Quirk was powerful enough, but they were in gym uniforms, not costumes. Most of Kaminari's support gear besides his headset was out of the equation. That left him with only his wilder, more uncontrolled blasts of energy. Less than ideal...

And also Todoroki's only fallback. Could he take the Warhound? It was huge, larger than the Zero-Pointers before it. Heavier, and likely faster gauging by the way it had charged into the arena. He didn't want to risk standing still to try and freeze it, and his fire was unlikely to melt through. He would avoid, he decided, using cover to evade its fire. It was a worthy enough foe, and the presence of nineteen other targets was promising. Eighteen. He needed Kaminari conscious to win.

Or at least, to win properly.

Snipe's gun fired, a familiar sound to his students. Shouto tensed; it had begun. The Warhound… no, just Warhound, let out that terrible mechanical bellow again, before surging forward on its treads, blasting through a small warehouse and setting its sights on Todoroki's starting group. The rotary cannons on its chest began to spin with a mechanical whine that slowly deepened to a steady thrumming, and Todoroki raised an ice wall before beginning a slide.

Immediately, something broke his ice wall. It wasn't Warhound, which was still revving its guns with that fearsome whirring sound. Something huge and dark surged into motion, smashing his cover and returning to the shadows. Todoroki cast an eye towards Tokoyami, who was already sinking into the dark space between two buildings, a glint of competitive challenge in his eyes.

Todoroki narrowed his own, and sent a wave of ice towards Tokoyami. Then Warhound fired, and Todoroki felt a hammer blow smash into his back. He staggered forward, ice fading as his concentration snapped, before turning towards Warhound, more rubber bullets pinging off the pavement and cement around him like a downpour of black rain as it narrowed its aim. He cursed, and back-pedalled towards a nearby wall to hide.

Another round drove into his shoulder, and he nearly stumbled off his feet before diving behind the wall. The Warhound continued its rumbling advance, and he cursed his luck, Tokoyami's audacity and the nature of the mechanical monstrosity bearing down upon him. Power Loader had clearly gone mad with power, gauging by how far he had gone with this latest design.

Suddenly, the Warhound shifted its focus, turning away and peppering a different stretch of road with rubber. Todoroki peered out at it from his cover with narrowed eyes, before moving from his cover. He kept low to the ground as he ran across the open street, ducking into a nearby alley and using that as his escape route. The Warhound was taller than many of the buildings, but hugging the walls would provide him visual cover.

Did it have proximity sensors? Presumably not, gauging by its design and actions. It was hunting based on sight, then, target identifiers in its head and body like as not. Shouto sighed, before a crackling green missile hurtled through the air above him with a whoop of exhilaration. He followed it with his eyes for a moment, watching Midoriya bounce from wall to wall some twenty feet above him in the alley, catching for a split second a look of determination in the boy's face.

Todoroki turned away. Let Midoriya have his fun, he told himself. He had bigger issues to deal with. A thunderous explosion from nearby encouraged him to run again, generating ice beneath himself to slide along. He would find Kaminari and put an end to this. He didn't even care for the reward; he wouldn't fall behind his classmates. He had to strive for more, to be better.

He had let the League escape that night. He would not fail again.

Izuku punched his metal hand into a brick wall, and watched as the sturdy material gave way under his fist with little resistance. He ran up and along the wall, using his newly anchored arm as a point of contact, before jumping sideways and grabbing the edge of the rooftop with both hands. He clambered up, and marvelled at the performance of the Crescendo Mark IV. It truly was Mei's magnum opus, insofar as he was concerned; it was strong, responsive and able to keep up with his One For All-enhanced strength and speed with ease.

He crouched low, watching the Warhound pass through another building, it's arms slowly swinging by its side like a person mid-stride. It wasn't looking his way, which was good. He was confident in his ability to dodge punches, explosions and most forms of ballistic weapons, but he hadn't actually tried bullets yet. A thunderous sound filled the air as an explosion washed over the machine's front, and Izuku grinned. Kacchan, of course.

He scanned the street below. No sign of Komori yet, not even a single mushroom. She had little mobility in any environment, especially not an urban one. A concerning scenario, but he was confident she would be able to keep herself out of harm's way until he found her.

If she wanted to be found, that dark part of his mind reminded him. Why would she? He had hurt her.

He clenched his jaw and shook his head. Internalized angst later. Field test for his new robot arm now. Once more he looked to the Warhound. It trundled along with all guns blazing, no doubt trying to take down Kacchan. Perhaps it was even succeeding. But he had another goal in mind.

He took off in a flat sprint, body surging with green lighting, and leapt off the edge of the building, clearing the gap between it and the next rooftop and continuing his run on the other side. He did this three times, constantly checking for Komori. No sign of her still... until he spotted a flash of brown ducking into cover. Not Uraraka, who he had already seen two blocks back and one over. Then Komori, he decided, leaping off the building.

He landed with a perfectly executed dive-roll, dispelling all his momentum but that which he could use, sliding into the same alley he had seen the flash enter. Sure enough, Komori was ducked down in there, eyes tracking him as he approached.

He came to a halt and held up his half of the 'doohickey', smiling at her. She lifted her own, and wordlessly they clicked together. There was a quiet beeping sound, and Izuku relaxed, taking a breath.

Then he opened his mouth to say something, and was rather impolitely cut off by the sound of asphalt grinding on asphalt. He turned and watched as a section of the road split open, and parting along clean lines he hadn't noticed before, and began disgorging six metal entities arranged in a vaguely human shape, with hunched backs and huge arms dangling down, ending in various claws, hooks and other such makeshift melee implements. Izuku blinked once.

"That's not good." he said, before the lead machine let out a mechanical growl and charged him.

Behind him, Kinoko squeaked in surprise and fear. Izuku, meanwhile, lunged towards the creature, checking its advance by driving his fist into the side of its stumpy head, crushing two of its six red eyes and crumpling the metal it was made of. It twisted away and collapsed to the ground, but already the other five were charging him.

"Midoriya!" he heard Komori shout, before he took a step back to dodge the swing of a metal fist the size of a Christmas ham, countering with a devastating kick to the head that cleanly decapitated the thing.

Only then did he glance over his shoulder to see Komori dodging another one of those metal fists, ducking underneath its swing as she frantically back-pedalled toward him. He looked up for a moment, calculating. Then he triggered Full Cowling, and surged into motion, slinging an arm under Komori's chest and grabbing her around the middle, before jumping straight up.

To her credit, she didn't panic and flail. He kicked off a junction box, then a hole in the wall, and soon enough they were on the roof. Beneath them, the machines crashed into one another, their head's turning this way and that. Izuku backed away from the roof's edge, letting go of Komori and sighing.

"That was close..." he murmured, and he heard Komori hum in agreement. "Okay... I get the feeling we aren't actually done yet."

"Did we do that?" Komori wondered aloud, sitting down on the cement roof.

"I-I think so, yeah..." Izuku agreed. "I mean, they showed up right when we activated our device. This must has been the real test all along."

"But what do we do now?" Komori wondered. "Is there an evac point or something?"

Izuku thought for a moment, scratching his chin with a metal finger. Crescendo had rounded fingertips though, so it was more like rubbing his chin while he hummed to himself. Was this the end? No. If it was, there wouldn't be new robots to fight. Then it must have been the start of the second phase. But what was the goal of the second phase?

Crescendo thrummed with energy as he wondered, and he could hear Komori scratching her head. Their first objective had been to unite with their partner and combine their devices. The second...

"It's kinda weird that Snipe-sensei told us to compete," Komori interjected. "Vlad-sensei never wanted us to fight during exercises unless they were combat focused. He always told us to work together."

Work together.

'So don't go thinking you can smash her up the way Midoriya did to her last year.' Snipe said in his mind.

It clicked.

"We aren't supposed to compete." he said, snapping his fingers. "It's a logical ruse, like Aiza... Aizawa-sensei. They're testing us, seeing if we'll work together even when we're set against each other. Each of these devices wakes up those robots down there..."

He looked at their finished device. It was unassuming, two halves of a metal disc now combined into a single flat circle of metal, with a little red dot in the middle that slowly blinked on and off. Then he paused, and looked again. A blinking light...

"This thing's emitting a signal." he realized, before looking at the Warhound.

"But what kind?" Komori asked, and he frowned.

"I have no idea." Izuku admitted. "But I bet it has something to do with the Warhound."

He turned to Komori, offering her a hand up. She stared at him for a second before taking it, the motion hesitant. He smiled reassuringly at her, before glancing sidelong at the Warhound again.

"We need to find the others," he said. "Any ideas"

Komori nodded once.

"I have one." she said, before pointing up towards the Warhound. "But we need to get on that thing."

Izuku smiled again, brighter now, with a gleam of mad delight in his eye. Climbing up a giant robot to send a message?

"Let's do it." he agreed. "Get on my back. I have plenty of practice carrying people that way."

"But… what if you need to fight?" Komori asked.

Izuku laughed.

"Plenty of practice," he repeated, turning around. "Now hop on."

**AN: **

**Rumours of my death have been greatly exaggerated, I assure you. Rumours of my illness, meanwhile, have not. I'm on antibiotics right now but it isn't for anything deadly, so don't worry; this story isn't going to die. At least, not until I do. **

**The story is cruising along. After this lovely four part chapter (yes, four parts, I am a madman) we'll be getting to the main thrust of this arc, which involves fire, death and dogs in equal measure. Let it be known beforehand that I do not condone the usage of your fellow man as kindling for societal revolution under any circumstances.**

**And at the insistence of my lovely and supremely talented editor Unsettling-A.I.R I will now be adding an outtakes segment in which we will have a short discussion about the future of this story so he doesn't remain some nebulous being that exists in the shadows and is potentially a figment of my imagination. **

**AIR: YEEES! After a thousand years I finally get to appear in the fic!**

**Son: God knows why you'd want to, given what happens to most of the characters in here.**

**AIR: Yeah, but if shit didn't happen then life would be mighty boring, masochists, that's what we all are I tell you.**

**Son: I can't disagree with that, I suppose. Now, do be so kind as to tell me why on Earth you wanted to edit this story of all the stories?**

**AIR: To be honest? I really liked the idea, felt the need to do something most of all, and lastly wanted to try my hand at editing, it can be quite fun.**

**Son: Ah, the holy trinity of intrigue, boredom and curiosity.**

**AIR: Works every time. That and a bit of courage. Can't leave the Zelda fans hanging.**

**Son: So, any words as to the future of our jolly cooperation?**

**AIR: Hmmmm, hope to actually have a say so in what happens to a character, nothing major really, that would be more work for the both of us. That and I hope to be able to make the fans of this fic smile when they read, that is one of my goals, or rather hopes. That and guilt trip you in the future to write something,maybe, possibly. Only the future can tell, until then dear readers, please stay tuned!**


	33. In Which Snipe Teaches (Part 3)

"Ow."

Hanta Sero was having a less than stellar time. Which was to say he was nursing a throbbing shoulder which he had few doubts was a lovely shade of purple under his gym uniform while leaning against a cement wall in a destroyed city. Or at least, a facsimile of a destroyed city, which in his mind was near enough to count. His whole body was sore, the primary sticking point of course being his battered shoulder.

The day had been going so well before now; he'd woken up, eaten breakfast, walked to class with Jirou, tried to decipher what the heck Snipe was saying in that weird accent of his, gotten changed into his gym uniform and then been shot in the shoulder. Which was, while not an unexpected turn of events given the holy-wow-okay-that-might-be-a-little-too-giant-robot wandering the streets of the aforementioned ruined city, still a pretty crappy way to end a perfectly good morning.

He had been swinging his way through the city, searching for Yaoyorozu, who apparently held the other half of his little metal "doohickey" (whatever that particular Americanism meant) that he kept stowed in his shoe for the time being. She was, after all, his partner in this exercise devised by the devil (or so he believed) and as such he required her assistance to finish the job.

His first order of business was to find her. It was also still his only order of business, given that he had yet to do so. He figured she would be holed up somewhere solid, keeping away from the colossal machine hunting them both (demonstrating the clear difference in intelligence between them), and as such he had taken to the streets to find that somewhere as quickly as possible. He had also overestimated his ability to dodge rubber bullets, and paid the price in bruises.

"This sucks." he lamented, looking at his sore shoulder and giving it a gentle rub. "This really, really sucks."

He shrugged, feeling for stiffness that fortunately had yet to set in. Then he rolled his shoulders, let out a quiet sigh and used his canister-like elbow to sling a length of his tape up to attach to the edge of the roof above. He started to climb up, until he was about halfway between the roof and the ground.

Then he ran forward along the wall, and released the current length of tape, letting another shoot out and grab the edge of the roof opposite. It stuck and he swung, a series of steps he repeated as he began to swing through the city. It was a series of motions he was well practiced in, and he began to hum a little tune as he carried along.

He was well aware he looked like Spider-Man. He was also appreciative of the comparison; Spider-Man, quite frankly, kicked ass. Sero was quite certain he too would one day kick ass. As such, he had no issue with being compared to such a kick-ass superhero.

He continued along, careful to only pass through areas away from the Warhound's interest. He had no desire to be peppered with even more black rubber; he'd had more than enough of that to last him a lifetime or two. No, he'd much rather duck and dive away from the monster than confront it head on. Better to live an ignoble coward than die a moron. Kyoka would never forgive him if he did that.

He spotted other students; the mysterious Kuroiro, fading into the black asphalt of the street itself and vanishing from sight, darksome Tokoyami trailing a confused looking Koda, Bakugou swearing up a storm as a beleaguered Ashido (his unfortunate teammate) carefully manipulated his right shoulder back into its joint. There were many things to see, but Sero was a busy man.

Eventually, he found Yaoyoruzu. That he found her alongside Midoriya and new girl Komori was odd, but Sero didn't think too hard about it. He landed on their little stretch of side road, and reached into his boot for his half of the device while greeting them.

"Yo." he said, grinning. "Looks like you beat us to it, Deku. Nice. No chores for you for a month, lucky guy."

"I-I don't think it's that easy." Midoriya replied, shaking his head in that very serious, Midoriya way that made Sero quite worried indeed. "Have you seen the other robots yet, Sero?"

"The... other robots?" Sero cocked his head to one side. "You mean besides the giant one? Nope."

Midoriya frowned, before glancing at the asphalt beneath them and shaking his head slowly. Then he reached out and took Sero's half of the device, and raised another half with his other hand. He put them together, and there was a soft beep as a red light atop them began blinking slowly.

"I thought so." Midoriya declared, right before the ground began to tremble.

Sero was caught off balance, but he quickly caught himself as the road began to split in two, mere inches to his left. He staggered away from the sudden gap in the ground, from which rose a metal platform with six robots atop it. They were ugly things, generally human in shape with hunched backs and stumpy necks ending in hexagonal boxes that looked more like sensor bars than functional heads. Their legs were permanently bent at the knee, and their dangling arms ended in hulking metal fists or shovel scoops.

One by one they let out sounds like metal creaking, before turning those heads towards the four students beside them. And in a flash Midoriya was among them, his left fist crackling with green lightning and his feet flying like an old Kung-fu film, knocking off heads and battering torsos into ruin. He sidestepped a two-handed slam and drove his metal arm into the machine's head, ripping out a fistful of wires, before ducking a swing from behind and bringing up one leg in a donkey-kick that took his assailant's head clean off.

The other four were destroyed in even quicker succession. Midoriya took a slow breath as each advanced, before surging into motion once more. One punch each, that was all it took. Each machine fell, a hole gaping in its steel skull, and Midoriya rolled his shoulders as the last of them fell, before turning back towards the other three students.

"Every time a disc is finished, a group or two of those pop out." he explained. "I'm pretty sure they're the next part of the exercise. These discs are emitting some kind of signal that activates them, I think, and I'm pretty sure we need to find... well, that's what I haven't figured out yet."

Sero blinked.

"Yeah, uh... alright." He nodded. "What should we do?"

"I made a flare gun." Yaoyorozu announced from beside him, holding up a red plastic pistol. "Should we use that?"

Midoriya shook his head.

"Not if we don't want the Warhound bearing down on us." he declared. "Although... do you think you could wire up some kind of remote trigger for it?"

Yaoyorozu nodded, and her exposed midsection began glowing as she pulled some pieces of metal and plastic free of her stomach, humming softly to herself as she did so. Sero glanced at Komori and then at Midoriya.

"And uh... what do I do exactly?" he asked, and Midoriya smiled before putting a firm metal hand on his shoulder.

"You're going to be our reconnaissance man." he declared.

Sero swallowed.

"Ummm..." He looked at the other three and nodded. "I... okay."

And so it was that a mere fifteen minutes later Sero found himself swinging through the city once more, this time carrying both of the teams' transmitter-discs. They were testing one of Midoriya's theories, and gauging by the fact that the street beneath him was splitting in two and disgorging a dozen of the robots, Sero was fairly certain it was a correct estimate. He was also fairly certain that, gauging by the distant explosions and shouting, Bakugou was having the time of his life.

He swung that way, rounding a corner to find the blonde furiously blasting a multitude of robotic opponents into so much scrap metal. This was normal Bakugou behaviour. Mina was back to back with him, throwing globs of worryingly corrosive acid that were melting through steel as though it were hot butter.

"Too late for the party, Sharkie." he declared, and Sero shook his head in faux-disappointment. "Chin up; there's probably more for all of us."

"This is so awesome!" Mina punched the air with a smile, before looking at Sero and laughing. "What's up?"

Sero held up the two discs in his hand, glancing sidelong at the demolished robots around them for a moment before swallowing.

"Midoriya has an idea about what the robots and the discs are for." he declared. "The discs are activating these things, and the Warhound is probably connected."

"That makes sense…" Bakugou nodded, putting his foot on a destroyed robot's chest and leaning on it a little. "Stupid things started popping out like fucking mushrooms after we clicked our disc together. Fuck!"

He kicked the dismembered metal man away, before blasting another nearby one, kicking up dust from the road. Sero choked on it, coughing.

"Fucking logical ruse bullshit." he spat, eyes burning suddenly. "Even after he's gone he's still fucking with us! Goddammit!"

He turned his eyes toward the Warhound, which was blasting a distant section of the city with rubber bullets, and pointed a finger at it.

"Bet you a week's lunch we're supposed to knock that fucking thing down." he declared. "I fucking knew it! Nobody builds a fucking Metal Gear and then tells you not to smash it into pieces!"

"Metal Gear?" Sero replied, his voice rough from the dust as he hacked out the last of it, Mina giving him a hearty slap on the back. "Okay… Midoriya thinks that might be it too. I-I think he has a plan?"

"He'd better," Bakugou spat. "Pinky, let's go. Where's Deku hiding?"

Sero told them, before launching himself into the air again, going back to swinging. He found Iida, Jirou and Kuroiro sprinting away from the Warhound and a pack of robots, the former also hauling an unconscious Koda over his shoulders. Sero swung beside them, matching their pace.

"Midoriya has a plan to handle the Warhound!" he shouted. "Head for the second tallest building, he's on the second floor with Yaoyorozu and Komori! Tell anybody else you see to head that way too!"

Iida called an affirmative, but Jirou shouted at Sero to look for Kirishima and Shouji, who had been separated from them by the Warhound and robots' attack. He nodded, taking off low to the ground again to avoid the Warhound's arc of fire. Somewhere behind him he could hear Bakugou blowing something else up, but he kept his head down and focused on the mission. He needed to find Kirishima and Shouji.

Finding them wasn't difficult. Shouji stood atop a building, scanning the city with four eyes on the ends of his tentacles, while Kirishima threw chunks of cement at the robots swarming the bottom of the building. The two had managed to attract at least fifty of the things, and Sero had seen even more awakening, seemingly in the wake of the Warhound's passing. He climbed their buildings and Kirishima hauled him over the edge.

"Midoriya has a plan to take down the Warhound." Sero declared. "But we need to get to that building over there."

He pointed to a broken skyscraper some five blocks away, which led to Kirishima groaning before tossing another chunk of cement over the edge, crushing a robot into a sparking mess at the base of the building.

"Alright…" he nodded. "Hey, Shouji, ya wanna try that Fastball move again?"

Sero left them to their escape plan. All he had to do now was find Uraraka and her partner, whose Quirks were apparently crucial to Midoriya's strategy. What that strategy entailed Sero wasn't entirely certain; not because Midoriya was being mysterious about it but because the greenette had admitted himself that the plan was currently little more than a fistful of vague ideas slowly coming together to resemble a proper scheme.

Sero had faith in Midoriya. He couldn't say why, or even how Midoriya had earned that faith; he just knew that if there was one person in 2-A he trusted with the planning side of heroism, it was Midoriya. Bakugou was his top pick for an action man, but tactics and schemes were all Midoriya's gig. Sero, meanwhile, was fine doing the basic things. Not everybody could top the charts and get plastered all over the billboards, after all. The world needed heroes who could just get the job done, and get it done right. If Sero could pull that off, he'd be happy with his lot.

From behind came a sound like thunder. Sero spun on his tape and watched as the Warhound broke through a building less than a block behind him, scanning the road with its six eyes. He swallowed and decided to pick up his pace, diving down towards the street and catching himself on another strand of tape, swinging even faster mere feet above the pavement. The Warhound let out that terrible foghorn bellow again, firing away at him with its guns. Sero spun and dove and twisted, narrowly avoiding the rain of black rubber.

This sucked even worse than it had at the start of the exercise. Why had it targeted him? Was it because he was moving so much? Did it have a personal grudge against him? Was it the discs? He was pretty sure it was the discs.

Regardless, he dodged as much as he could. A few rounds winged him, forcing the breath from his lungs and making him nearly miss his swings. These things freaking hurt, and he was looking to take a lot more of them. He tried turning down a side street, but the Warhound just kept firing, following him as close as it could.

"Oh, come on!" he shouted, right before it bellowed again. "Go shoot at something else, you overgrown garbage can!"

Another bullet hit his back and he fumbled his next swing, tumbling down to the ground. He rolled to disperse his fall and prevent himself from snapping his own neck, but another shot hit his leg and for a second he wanted to stop moving. But he rolled to the side, into an alleyway, and let out a ragged gasp.

The Warhound bellowed yet again. It was still hunting him. This wasn't looking good, not at all. At the other end of the alley, one of the hunched robots from under the street turned the corner, scanning the shadows with its stumpy monocular head. Sero looked over his shoulder at the Warhound.

"Plan…" he muttered to himself. "C'mon brain, let's get a plan going please…"

There was a colossal explosion, and the Warhound reeled as the alley was bathed in yellow and orange light. Sero stared in awe at the Warhound as it swayed back a bit, knocked off balance by the sheer size of the fiery explosion that had struck it. Then the ground shook as it rumbled forward, bellowing in anger at whatever had just hit it.

"What the hell?" he asked, as it began rolling down the street, away from him.

He shook his head, firing off some tape and beginning another climb up the sides of the alley again. He couldn't stop. He needed to find-

"Sero!" Ochaco Uraraka's hushed voice called, making him blink before looking straight up at her as she peered down at him over the edge of the roof. "Up here, come on!"

She looked a little queasy when Sero made it to her, sitting down heavily on the roof as he climbed over the edge. Beside her the white-haired Reiko Yanagi watched the Warhound grind down the street away from them, her expression neutral.

"You really thought it was a water truck?" she asked suddenly, and Uraraka grimaced.

"I thought it might be!" she snapped back, before leaning against the power transformer at her back. "Besides, it got the giant robot away from Sero, didn't it?"

Yanagi shrugged, before looking at Sero with Uraraka. He took a deep breath.

"Midoriya has a plan to beat the Warhound." he declared. "And he needs you two to pull it off apparently. You good to come with?"

Uraraka nodded with a big smile, while Yanagi frowned a little, glancing down at the roof. She looked almost annoyed.

"One of the infamous Midoriya schemes," she muttered, arms crossed. "Will this one also include breaking several of his own limbs and being hospitalized?"

"Hey!" Uraraka protested, looking up at her partner in outrage. "Deku hasn't done that in months!"

"Yes, because that is the reassurance I was looking for." Yanagi fired back. "Tell me, Hanta Sero; do you trust Midoriya's ability to handle this?"

She looked at him expectantly. Perhaps she expected Sero to admit to uncertainty, or act like he wasn't sure. Sero just grinned at her.

"More than I trust myself," he admitted. "Trust us. Midoriya's plans may seem crazy from the outside, but he knows what he's about. And he's damn good at doing what he says he will."

Yanagi stared him down for a moment, probably trying to see if he was screwing with her. Sero just laughed a little, before pointing to the same tall building he'd been pointing out to everyone else.

"Meet us on the second floor there," he advised. "That's where the plan'll come together. Uraraka, you in?"

"Always." the brunette declared, rising to her feet. "I trust Deku."

Yanagi looked between them both, before sighing softly. She brushed the dust from her shoulders, before nodding once.

"Fine." she said. "I will go along with this plan. Let us be off."

"You're gonna love this." Sero promised, grinning. "There'll almost definitely be at least one giant explosion. Usually more"

**AN:**

**Fun fact: Chapter 35 was finished before this chapter. Make of this what you will.**

**Unsettling A.I.R's Input: Yes, his mind works in mysterious ways.**


	34. In Which Snipe Teaches (Part 4)

"We're going to destroy the Warhound."

The reaction to Izuku's declaration was fairly uniform; unease. Just about everybody besides Bakugou shifted uncomfortably or looked downright defeated. Sero just rubbed his shoulder, while Todoroki frowned. Izuku wasn't concerned, however; he knew something like this was inevitable. He also knew he could handle it. He was, after all, the one who had broken a Zero-Pointer in two on his first day with a Quirk. Everybody else, meanwhile...

All eyes were on him, which was becoming an increasingly familiar sensation. He wasn't sure exactly how it had happened, but most of class 2-A looked to him as a guiding figure now, or even a leader. Ochaco and Tenya swore by his plans, Tokoyami followed along with only the faintest criticisms when they were needed and even Bakugou would typically stop and listen to him speak when he presented an idea. That was truly something to behold, he was told.

"We'll need to work together," he continued. "And we'll have to play our parts well. But the Warhound can be beaten. Yaoyorozu?"

He watched as the class VP stepped up beside him, hands folded behind her back, footsteps on the cement floor clicking softly in the quiet. She looked nervous as well; she couldn't stand still, and while her fiddling thumbs were hidden from the class Izuku could see them. She took a deep breath before speaking, setting her expression to be just a little more stern and neutral.

"Having analyzed the Warhound with some monitoring equipment," she began. "Midoriya and I have determined two potential weaknesses in the machine's superstructure."

"Whoa whoa whoa…" Kuroiro raised a finger in interjection, leaning forward from where he stood leaned against a pillar near the far corner. "Potential? You guys don't even know if this thing has any confirmed weak spots?"

The rest of the class reacted appropriately; people began looking to each other, to Izuku and to Yaoyorozu, who seemed to have been caught off guard by the spontaneous critique. Then there was a harsh sound as somebody cleared their throat, and all eyes went instead to Iida. His grey armour was battered and dented, having clearly taken more than a few shots from the Warhound's cannon, but his helmet was at his hip and his expression was one of calm, almost clinical detachment.

For a split second Izuku remembered Sir Nighteye, who had once looked at the world with similarly cold eyes, and he worried for his friend.

"Your concern is appreciated, Kuroiro," the class president retorted, his voice devoid of any emotion bar a single note of displeasure. "But I believe we are all aware that the Warhound is a new foe. It stands to reason we would not be able to discern its weaknesses after a series of short engagements."

The tension was partially defused with that, Kirishima muttering under his breath about manliness while everybody else seemed to relax a little, though the general sense of unease remained. Yaoyorozu looked truly thankful, while Iida just stared down a surprised Kuroiro with a cold stare.

"Thank you, Iida," Yaoyorozu said, before looking at Kuroiro with a smile. "I know this is far from ideal, but as was just said, the Warhound is a new enemy. These two, ahem, potential weaknesses are all we have to work off at the moment."

Kuroiro leaned back, clearly skeptical, but Izuku could see the way Yaoyorozu shrugged it off, turning to face the rest of the class again.

"These two weakness are its chest-mounted weapons battery, and the sensor array built into its head." she said. "Of these two, we believe the head would be the easier of the two to nullify. Midoriya?"

Izuku stepped forward again, glancing around the room at the class. Everybody was waiting with baited breath as he took that single step, watching him like hawks. They needed to know his plan, to know they could win this exercise. He closed his eyes for a moment, before pointing to Kaminari.

"Lightning."

Kaminari jolted, looking to the left and right before meeting Izuku's gaze and cocking his head to one side, confused. Izuku paused and flushed bright red.

"Uh, that is to say…" he shook his head. "Kaminari, your electricity will be vital to taking down the Warhound. If the sensory array is more complicated, which we know it is, that means there are more systems to be overloaded. To do that, we need electricity… and a lot of it."

Kaminari smiled.

"Well, I know a guy…" he said, before looking at Izuku. "But uh… how am I gonna get up there?"

"You won't." Izuku replied, shaking his head. "I will. With Uraraka's help. And probably Shoji's. I'm also going to need Yaoyorozu, Kacchan and Yanagi."

The named students all looked up, and Izuku grinned a very fearsome grin.

"We need to nullify those guns," he declared. "And once they're off, I need Shoji to throw me at the Warhound. Kaminari, I need you to charge my arm with as much electricity as you can muster without hurting yourself."

Kaminari stared. As a matter of fact, everybody in attendance not named Katsuki Bakugou (who had likely predicted something to this effect based purely on his knowledge of Izuku as a person) stared. Silently, probably in shock, before Kaminari shrugged and cracked his knuckles.

"I've done dumber things with my Quirk," he admitted, before rubbing his palms together and generating a small static charge. "Come here, Deku; let's get you all amped up."

While Kaminari charged up Izuku's arm with enough electricity to blackout a small city district, the rest of the class went about their own preparations under Yaoyorozu's instruction. Bakugou and Sero headed for a nearby tower two blocks away, where a rooftop with a commanding view jutted high above the surrounding buildings. Uraraka, Yanagi and Shouji all made for the roof of the building they were in, while Yaoyorozu herself took a slightly confused Todoroki and made for another tower also a few blocks away.

From the highest tower in the city, Snipe watched with the aid of a few camouflaged cameras and drones as his class began to split up, putting Midoriya's scheme into action. The teacher whistled quietly in amusement, observing the groups make their way to their designated ambush points.

"Power Loader sure ain't gonna be pleased by this one," he muttered in amusement. "That poor bastard. All this effort on his new toy for nothin'..."

The first to set up were Yaoyorozu and Todoroki, and Snipe watched with intrigue slowly turning to awe as his top-scoring student pressed a hand to her stomach, which began to glow, and slowly generated an oddly familiar shape.

'Ho-lee shit…" he cursed, before chuckling. "Nezu, you seein' this?"

"Indeed!" the principal declared, his own mirth clear. "I trust you taught her this?"

"Nope." Snipe shook his head. "I don't know where she figured this one out. Damn impressive sight regardless, I gotta admit."

Yaoyorozu took a moment to finish off the creation of her new weapon, the unusually large gun Snipe had already tagged as the notorious Barret M82A1 anti-materiel rifle, before dropping down onto her stomach and flipping out the bipod. She settled and sighted down the scope, clearly watching the Warhound, before raising a hand to her ear and speaking a few short words.

"Now this I gotta see." Snipe declared, relaxing and keeping one drone centered on that sight, before checking on the others.

Midoriya was speaking to Kaminari even as the blonde charged up his arm with an increasingly worrisome amount of electricity. Midoriya's hair was standing up on end from the static, the Crescendo twitching intermittently with little arcs of yellow lightning leaping between his fingertips and along the plates. His jaw was clenched and teeth were gritted, eyes narrowed. It didn't look like pain, more like intense focus.

Bakugou was on his own designated rooftop, Sero helping him strip off his grenade bracers and sliding one onto his own arm. Bakugou pantomimed the motion of activating the weapon, which Sero mimicked with the actual bracer, earning a slap on the wrist and a bout of angry yelling Snipe could faintly hear from his own distant perch.

The last team of Uraraka, Yanagi and Shouji had reached the top of their own building, the former carrying another curious sight. Snipe focused on it, then started to laugh again as he recognized it.

"And now she's makin' HEAT shells." he declared, feeling his sanity slip a little as the laughter carried it away. "Mercy, is there anything that girl isn't gonna pull out today?"

Uraraka was indeed hauling a high-explosive-anti-tank shell in her arms; not a particularly enormous one, but large enough to make him pause in worry when the brunette stumbled. Shouji caught her, however, before taking the shell from her and cradling it in four arms, a sight that was far more reassuring. Yanagi just watched the two, expression blank as ever.

"What in the hell are they up to?" Snipe wondered aloud, checking all three cameras again.

Yaoyorozu was loading a very large bullet into her very large gun, while Todoroki used his Quirk to barricade the rooftop doorway behind a good three feet of solid ice.

Bakugou was rolling his shoulders and stretching his arms, rubbing his palms together and generally looking as though he were preparing for something big.

Uraraka had touched the HEAT shell to apply her Quirk to it, and Yanagi had lifted it with her own telekinetic Quirk, slowly rotating it around herself with eyes narrowed and hands outstretched to her sides.

Midoriya walked up the steps behind them, his mechanical arm outstretched to one side practically surging with energy. His eyes were aglow with emerald light, the rest of his body crackling with that green lightning that was his own personal staple. Arcing tendrils of green and yellow danced with each other on the surface of the Crescendo, making for an almost mesmerizing shape. He stared down the Warhound, which had begun to pick up on the amount of movement inside their particular building.

Then Midoriya spoke, and his voice echoed across the training ground.

"All teams!" he shouted. "Fire on my mark!"

Yaoyorozu charged the bolt on her rifle and closed one eye, taking aim.

Bakugou curled one hand into a tube and braced his other palm against the end, pointing it towards the Warhound.

Yanagi began to increase the speed of the shell's rotation, whirling it around her faster and faster, building up momentum.

"Ready…" Midoriya called.

Yaoyorozu held her breath.

Bakugou smirked.

Yanagi stared at the Warhound.

"FIRE!"

Yaoyorozu pulled the trigger, and the Barret's thunderous retort echoed across the training ground. Bakugou fired off an explosion from his palm, sending a streaking ball of orange light towards the Warhound. Yanagi released the shell from her Quirk and watched it fly straight and true.

Three simultaneous detonations rocked the Warhound; three perfect bullseye hits on its chest, where the guns sat. There was a cloud of smoke obscuring his sight of them, but the lights on the side of his remote told Snipe that all three shots had achieved their intended goal; the Warhound's guns were dead.

Then a streak of green and yellow flew through the air, having been hurtled like a spear of olympian lightning by Shoji. Uraraka was starting to turn green from keeping Midoriya's mass nonexistent, while the boy let out a whoop of glee as he hurtled towards the freshly declawed Warhound with his arms extended.

Uraraka touched her fingers together and let out a sigh of relief as her Quirk released, returning Midoriya's mass just as he impacted the head of the Warhound. His metal fist dug deep into one of it's manhole-sized eyes before he ripped it out, kicking off the machine's face and raising that same overcharged arm.

Snipe watched as the boy put his middle finger and thumb together, and flicked.

"OVERTURE!" Midoriya shouted.

Then his arm released all the pent up electricity in one single surge, five arcing tendrils of lightning reaching out from Midoriya's open palm and grounding themselves in the Warhound's sensitive metal head. The results were explosive; the Warhound possessed a secondary power core inside its steel skull to run all those sensors and systems; that much electricity grounding itself resulted in a catastrophic overload. Each eye popped like a lightbulb during a thunderstorm, the head's casing cracking as the core exploded within. Billowing jets of thick black smoke shot from every new crack and crevice.

And Midoriya fell slowly towards the earth, before a black shape surged out from the shadows and engulfed him in outstretched arms, pulling him down to the ground at a more manageable pace. Snipe stood up and saluted the dying Warhound with one hand touching his temple, before shaking his head slowly.

"That boy's gonna bring the goddamn apocalypse one day," he warned Nezu, grinning all the while. "And he ain't even gonna know how he did it 'till the angels are ringin' the bells."

Nezu said nothing, clearly intent on rewatching and examining all the footage. Snipe dismissed the camera drones back to their charging ports with a quick button press, doing the same to the Iron Legion robots that had emerged from beneath the ground. They had already begun to shut down, their primary signal relay in the form of the Warhound now forcibly offline.

"Alright boys and girls," he said, his voice echoing across the PA system. "That was a damn fine show of teamwork and cooperation. Damn fine. Get yourselves to the changerooms, shower, that whole affair. You just earned the rest of the day off. I'll see y'all bright and early tomorrow morning."

A rousing cheer went up from all over the training ground, and Snipe grinned as he tucked the remote away. Then he made for the stairs; he had some paperwork to file… and an apology for Power Loader in need of planning.

Down on the ground, Izuku felt surprisingly good. He rotated his arm at the shoulder, wrist and elbow in order, none of the joints sticking or backfiring. He cracked his neck to one side, then the other, before raising his hands over his head. Nothing. Not even a single malfunction. The Mark Four had held up to every test he could possibly put it through, and he'd barely even scraped the knuckles.

"Thanks for the save," he said to Tokoyami, who was himself staring in awe at the destroyed Warhound's smoking remains. "That was a good catch, Dark Shadow."

"Don't mention it." the Quirk replied, emerging from its user's collar and shrugging. "If I let you get splattered all over the pavement, who's gonna keep mister sunshine and roses here from spending all day reading boring old poetry?"

"William Blake is a master of his craft," Tokoyami fired back. "And I will not have you disparage his name because you can't comprehend his expertise."

Izuku laughed, leaving the two to their argument and making his way towards the exit. The rest of the class fell in over time, Bakugou dropping down beside him first with a smirk.

"That was pretty fucking awesome." the blonde declared. "Fuck, I wasn't even sure I get an AP-Shot to go that far. How the fuck did you know it would work?"

"Because if it hadn't, it would have been your fault the plan failed." Izuku explained, smiling. "And you can't stand failure. So I knew you would succeed… because I know you, Kacchan."

Bakugou stared at him for a second, before laughing.

"Yeah, that sounds about right." he admitted. "So, you picking up the kids early then?"

"They're with Mirio and Eri today," Izuku replied. "I thought I'd just spend the rest of the morning with them. Eri misses me a lot lately, apparently."

Bakugou shrugged, before glancing up at the sight of Yaoyorozu descending the stairs of the building she and Todoroki had been using, a colossal rifle over her shoulder and a look of calm focus on her face. Izuku watched as Bakugou paused and stared for a long moment, before choking on something and looking away, coughing violently. He gave his oldest friend a pat on the back, receiving a 'fuck off' for his troubles.

"Is Bakugou alright?" Yaoyorozu asked.

"Dust…" Bakugou groaned, before taking a deep breath, coughing one more time. "Holy fuck…"

"Yeah." Izuku glanced at Momo, and then back at Bakugou, smiling a sly little smile. "Just dust."

**AN:**

**This took a little less time than I expected; and with Chapter 35 already all but squared away (more editing is possibly required) and Chapter 36 halfway finished its rough draft phase, you guys can expect a tidy clip for the next few days until we hit another speedbump when I remember that oh-gosh-oh-frick we have a whole new arc to handle.**

**Canon will be effectively ignored from this point onwards, obviously; I feel that shouldn't have to be said given how liberally I've ignored just about every majour plot-point post Overhaul, but it should likely be noted in writing at least once so nobody gets confused about it. Canon characters will show up, alongside OCs aplenty because we're moving into a whole new, mostly original story from here on out.**

**If you dig that, let me know. If you don't… heck, also let me know, because some of the best stuff in this story ended up here because people told me they wanted or didn't want something done. Every review and comment makes Caliban a happy boy and gives A.I.R a reason to get out of bed in the morning.**

**See y'all tomorrow! **

**Unsettling A.I.R's Aside: Bitches love cannons.**


	35. In Which Snipe Learns

Karyoku Roku let out a sigh as he walked up the dorm stairs, hat in hand, mask hanging loose around his neck. His lone eye followed Midoriya carrying his children into his room, the greenette cooing softly to the smaller of the pair. He smiled at the sight, sickeningly domestic as it was. He touched two fingers to the side of his head as the door swung shut, giving the boy a subtle salute.

Midoriya was trying damn hard, that much was certain. He kept the kids with him as often as possible, only leaving them with Mirio or Doctor Nyanja when he had no other options, during classes and the like. He spent most of his weekends with them, taking them for walks around the campus and feeding them himself. They had yet to say much, though little Inko was given to saying 'pop' while frantically gesturing for her father's attention.

Most of the rest of 2-A was as enamoured with them as Midoriya was. Bakugou had begun swearing less, not stopping altogether but slowing down enough to be noticeable. Shouji had taken to Inko especially, given the similarity in their Quirks, while Shouta was Todoroki's favourite (not that the solemn boy would ever admit such a thing out loud). Uraraka and Mina both were obsessed with the two, while Momo enjoyed making clothes for them.

The only students who seemed less keen on the twins were Kaminari, who proclaimed that he 'loved them from a distance' but stayed back for fear of his Quirk accidentally hurting them, and Jirou, who seemed to be doing her level best to ignore them and their father as much as possible. The new transfers had seemed cautious as well, though the same could be said of their approach to everything else.

The twins were an active benefit to the class, it seemed. Spirits were always up when they were around, and Midoriya's grades and effort had never been higher. The kid took to fatherhood like a fish to water.

Yeah, Roku decided, Midoriya was doing just fine as a parent. Better than anybody had expected. Now Roku just had to keep Nemuri from kidnapping them for her own as she had fantasized about a few times, and all would be well.

He searched for his keys in his pocket, glancing at the knob of his door, and froze. It wasn't locked. He always locked his door.

Silently he slid to the side, drawing his six-shooter. The tenner was for teaching and heroics; the six-shooter was his standard carry when off-duty, due to the tenner technically being illegal. He held it firm in his right hand, reaching across the door with his left to grab the knob. He twisted, pushed it in and entered, gun raised and finger on the trigger.

"_Hola_, Yo-Yo." said the woman he hadn't seen in five years, laying atop his bed with her legs crossed and hands folded behind her back. "Been a while, no?"

She was still wearing her old outfit, the one she'd donned as the heroine Longshot. The skintight black spandex under the tan bullet-proof vest, with her left arm fully exposed with all its Catholic tattoos, the face of the Virgin with her hands clasped before her wrapped around her bicep. Her black hair was cut short and rough, a style more like Ojiro's than anyone else.

Her rifle was leaning against the wall beside his bed, the colossal custom marksman's platform called 'Mother Mercy' that had been her trademark for so many years. It hadn't changed at all, but for the scope and barrel both being longer.

"Speechless, _mi amor_?" she asked, grinning at him in that same way that still sent a thrill down his spine all these years later. "Don't be. I know you have questions. I do too."

Roku lowered his gun, and she giggled at his dumbfounded expression.

"What the hell're you doing here, Amaya?" he asked, finally. "You told me the next time you saw me, you'd kill me."

"I spoke too soon," she admitted, and she even had the decency to look somewhat ashamed. "I was stupid and young. Just like you, Yo-Yo."

"Still don't change the fact you went rogue." Roku declared, raising his pistol again. "You dropped heroism and went into the blood market. You expect me to just let you walk in and outta here without any trouble?"

She stared at him for a moment, before rolling off his bed and rising to her feet. When she turned back towards him, her expression was all business, any trace of flirtatious amusement gone.

"Somebody put up an open contract on All Might worth ten million American green." she said. "All you have to do is put a hole in his head. I came to warn you."

Roku blinked.

"Ten-million?" he repeated, and Amaya nodded.

"The job had eighty-five takers last I checked, more every day." She folded her hands in front of her, down by her hips. "Given that he's your coworker, I thought I might warn you."

"Warning received." Roku said, blinking again. "You here for that money too?"

She smiled again then, shaking her head slowly.

"No," she declared. "I'm here for a different contract. Somebody else put up protection money on one of your students. Two million so long as he survives until graduation. I took the deal."

"He?" Roku felt like a broken record.

"He's got a bit of a reputation," she said, her smile growing. "And now that I'm here, I can see why he's worth so much. I did my research; the kid's done quite a lot in a year."

Roku's hands didn't tremble, but he did narrow his eye.

"Who?" he asked, and Amaya leaned against his bed, crossing her arms in front of her.

"Izuku Midoriya." she declared. "And you're going to make this an official job. I want to meet with Nezu to discuss terms."

Roku tensed, finger slipping onto the trigger, thumb cocking the pistol. Amaya just watched.

"Why the hell would I do that?" he asked.

"Because that All Might contract had a footnote." she said. "Midoriya's head is worth a bonus two million. Each kid is worth five-hundred thousand alive. But if nobody can manage it, there's a further stipulation. Each one of your other students is one-hundred thousand, but only if nobody takes Midoriya."

"And this means I take you to Nezu, why?" Roku asked.

"Because whoever's paying that kind of cash is serious about this." she declared. "And Nezu probably already knows about the contract, but he doesn't have the connections with the blood market that I do. You both need me."

She smirked, and Roku's hand finally began to shake, before he lowered his aim and took a deep breath. Before he could speak, however, a squeaky voice emitted from the speakers built into his mask.

"Very well played, Miss Fumar." Nezu said, sounding very amused indeed. "Please, Roku, bring her to my office. I feel we have much to discuss."

The voice cut out, and Roku stared at his former lover for a long moment. Amaya giggled again at his expression, before walking towards him and giving him a peck on the cheek.

"C'mon Yo-Yo," she whispered, breath hot on his ear. "You always wanted to show me around UA."

**AN:**

**OC time! That's... really all I've got for this chapter. Just a short scene this time around; back to our regularly scheduled interpersonal drama come the next chapter. And for those asking about Toga; soon. That is all I can promise.**


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